xela | New glasses + new eyes = WOW!

I'm seeing better now, with my new eyes and my brand-new-today eyeglasses than I've seen in years. It's hard to say how long: the decline has been gradual, with periodic resets each time I got new glasses. But for several years now, no matter how new my glasses, every time I've tried to look at the stars, or even a distant hillside, they've been fuzzy and indistinct.*

My optician is just down the block from the place I worked from 1996 to 2005. And the first thing I noticed when I stepped out into the street was, as I tweeted at the time:

OMFG! There's a church tower 2-300 m away. I've never seen it so clearly! Everything in between is in focus too. Amazing!

Except now I've checked: The bell tower was over 550 meters away.

I went back in, got some final adjustments, and wandered up the street, tweeting, trying to phone someone to share my enthusiasm with, until suddenly I looked up the street again. But I'd come to where it makes a bend prior to a long straight run, and

At Mass ave & Walden, where Mass ave bends. Most distant object now Arlington water tower. Which too is much more clear than ever. Wow

The Arlington water tower is just over 5 km from where I was standing. I sure wish it wasn't cloudy tonight: I want to try looking at the stars!

There have been some quite startling episodes: I remember going target shooting with some friends a couple years ago: It was only the second time I'd fired a gun since my teens, when I spent a lot of my summers with my mom's family, who were cattle ranchers in Oregon. Everyone over about the age of twelve there carried a gun on a daily basis, as a basic tool: (There were vermin to control, and the occasional necessity of putting down an injured animal.) As the visiting city cousin, I wasn't trusted with a gun til I was 14 and my aunts and uncles were confident in my grasp of firearms safety. I was also, by family standards, a terrible shot. Which turned out to mean I was a pretty good shot in any other company. Anyway, a couple years ago I went target shooting with some friends at a rang in New Hampshire. While I put in a respectable showing (I was getting three-inch groups at 10 yards with a .38 revolver), I was quite startled by my inability to keep the gunsite and the target in focus simultaneously.