Marc's Musings

As glasses styles get smaller and smaller, I find that my glasses no longer offer the protection for my eyes from wind and dust when I’m cycling.

So I decided to treat myself to a good pair of glasses that I would use for sporting purposes. They would be larger than my current glasses, they would curve a bit around my face and they would have transition lenses to offer some daylight dimming but would not interfere with evening and night activities.

I have a pretty modest prescription. I can see things at a distance but I just can’t focus well enough to read signs and see details at a distance easily.

I decided on a pair of Oakley Tightrope glasses as I thought the frame was pretty attractive and the Rx-able lenses would shield my eyes nicely.

I purchased the glasses on November 4, 2009 from my local Pearle Vision shop and would need to pick them up a couple of weeks later as I was headed out of state on a week long cruise.

When I picked up the glasses, I knew there was something odd about them as they made me a bit woozy but I couldn’t put my finger on the problem. immediately assuming that I just needed to get used to the new lenses I wore them out of the store and tried them for a full day.

It turns out that the curvature of the lens required for this wraparound style frame introduces some distortion on the inner portion of the lenses (this is the part between the pupil and the nose). Looking through the lens from my pupil toward the periphery was perfect, but trying to look toward the center had everything appearing to “bunch up”. Unless I’m looking straight ahead, at least one eye was always facing a compressed view of the world. Moving around, i.e. driving a car is so dynamic that the constant shift of perspective was nauseating.

So I took the glasses back and they actually experimented with a couple of lenses even grinding one on the spot to see if that would work. My desired frame could only work with a limited range of curvatures (I believe a “7” or an “8”, whatever that means in optical terms).  But the result was still the same with that peculiar compression toward the center of my view.

They then ordered in a few alternate frames that I could try to see if any would meet my needs. Ironically, when I went in to check them out the original tightrope frame was also in the tray and I gravitated to it immediately before we all realized that those were my original frame choice. None of the other alternatives offered the protection that I was looking for. They were pretty stylish but not so sporty.

So the Pearle Vision folks then shipped the frames and prescription off to Oakley and, to their credit, did not charge me any extra for having the lenses ground there. Apparently there is a significant premium to doing so that they elected to eat as we were now in early January, about 2 months after this Odyssey had begun.

I picked up the glasses about a week ago and – ta da! – the lens is optically correct for me.

I was, for a while, worried that Pearle was just trying to make me overstay my 60 day chargeback limit for my credit card. I don’t deal often with things optical but my recent dealing with Wal-Mart’s optical department had made me very wary.

But the Pearle Vision folks were true to their word and they made sure that my prescription and my glasses needs were met. I’ll be popping in next week to thank them personally and to ensure that they know that their efforts are recognized and appreciated.

As promised, here is my final entry for my insulation experience with Wilson Insulation. January 12 they arrived as promised (this entry is a little delayed… hey I’ve been busy). They didn’t have an official dam to protect my master bedroom attic hatch access so they constructed one out of some kind of insulation board.

I’m not exactly sure how I’ll be getting into and out of the attic but I presume I’ll figure out the required technique when the time comes.

Overall I have to say I’m satisfied. There were some miscues between the sales and the install folks. These could be related to the time of year, vacations and other seasonal thoughts keeping folks from being as focused as they maybe could be. But they made the effort to ensure that my concerns were addressed and they were prompt and courteous. I would use them again if I had to start all over.

So Wilson Insulation gets a “Thumbs up” from me!

This past Saturday I purchased some software over the Internet (yes, I actually *do* pay for my software..). As part of the transaction I elected to use my VISA card.

Once I had entered the credit card information and clicked “Submit” a curious screen came up purporting to be some kind of confirmation screen. Among other details that it wanted to collect were the last 4 digits of my social security number. Being a reasonably aware netizen I decided that this was too hokey for me and elected to cancel the transaction. I knew that it was *probably* legitimate, but quite frankly I was not feeling too comfortable giving out additional info like that for a simple $30 purchase. I finished the transaction using paypal instead.

Well, fast forward to yesterday (Thursday) and my wife calls me. She was trying to make a purchase for yet more greeting cards and the $5 transaction had been declined by the credit card company. I checked online and my account wouldn’t show up on it’s secured web site so I called Chase (my VISA card brand owner) and found that the decision to cancel out of the transaction had flagged my account 5 days later as a potential fraud risk. I spoke with the fraud rep and they cleared everything up and I was able to use the card to buy gas on the way home an hour or so later.

Checking my online status this morning finds that the account is still missing from the Chase web site. So I called them up and they tell me that the account likely won’t show up for a few more days due to it’s “fraud status”. They ever so kindly offered me a new card that I could use right away (preapproved for a whole $500!) that I could cancel once my other card was up and running. Not sure how they’d get it to me in any kind of relevant time frame.

Anyway, the lessons learned from this:

• If anyone asks for any amount of information regarding your credit card online, just give it to them
• If your card information is stolen online, apparently the thieves have nearly a week to use it
• As fast as the fraud alert is at being set on your account, it’s apparently just as fast at being removed.

This isn’t crippling, just annoying. I use the online credit card information regularly to verify that no weird purchases are being made and to confirm that expected purchases have been made successfully. It’s odd that it takes SO long for a fraud alert to be triggered and then, once that happens, the best tool at my disposal for reviewing and validating purchases is disabled.

Color me not impressed.