(no subject)

So I have some new responsibilities at work...woohoo?

Actually, it's really minor. Every night that I work, about an hour after I start, I have to run some queries, record some numbers, then download an excel spreadsheet and update it with the numbers. It's about five minutes worth of work. But it took Ahmed about two hours of monkeying around with my computer last night to give me the access to do what I need to do.

In the meantime, I had to take calls around him- which meant a lot of making him get away from my desk so I could do my job and at one point, I thought he was going to try to talk me into considering moving to daytime support to take Spanish calls- I had to tell someone to go away...in Spanish, and was talking to him for several minutes, explaining when he could call back and speak to someone who speaks Spanish- doing this in Spanish.

Problem was that this guy didn't quite grok the "tech support is closed" bit of things and thought that because I was able to speak Spanish that this must mean I could fix his issues...it took a bit of downplaying my speaking abilities- for rarely using it, my retention of the language is pretty damned decent. I never did develop the ability to speak very rapidly in Spanish, but I speak smoothly, and don't generally need to think about what I'm saying. Unfortunately when I get someone speaking Spanish on the line, I have to try and play it down to appear that I'm able to just barely communicate enough to get it through to them that they should call tomorrow, or on the rare occasion that it happens during the day on a Thursday, just enough to get them to hold and transfer to one of the Spanish speaking agents.

While I could handle just the speaking/understanding the language part, the technical stuff would definitely be an issue. Doing things like RMA checks, or handling the calls that go straight to level two, I wouldn't be able to do tech support.

Besides, I don't want to switch to day shift.

LASIK update

Okay...so yesterday I finally talked to someone at Katzen about scheduling an evaluation for LASIK. I called Wednesday, never got to talk to anyone. They called me back yesterday morning, I missed the call. I called back, waited on hold forever til I was flipped over to their voice mail. Left a message asking them to call me back *in the afternoon* and started to fall asleep. Lo and behold, they called me 20 minutes later, which annoyed me but I talked to one of their representatives who was just so disturbingly perky I wanted to reach through the phone and shake her.

You know, I always thought LASIK was done using only lasers. Apparently I was wrong. They have LASIK and bladeless LASIK- in the regular old LASIK, they use a blade to cutt a flap in your cornea and then the laser to reshape it. With bladeless, well, obviously, it's a laser for both.

Alright, I've heard all sorts of quoted prices for LASIK, but their prices start at $2700 for the most basic, blade-cut proceedure, and run up to nearly $5000. Before this, I think the highest I'd heard was in the neighborhood of $2000, maybe slightly more, ad as far as I know, that was for a bladeless proceedure.

Now these are my freakin' eyes I'm talking about, and I'm not gonna go somewhere cheap just because. The possibility of losing my vision is one of my secret fears that, despite the strength of my prescription, I don't really have much cause to think about. But two of my grandparents have gone blind or nearly so (though both were diabetic, Nanny (my mom's mom) was a heavy alcoholic. My grandfather I suspect was a functional alcoholic. Complicated diabetes does tend to up that possibility strongly, so I don't know if it was just that or if either would have gone blind otherwise and I am neither alcoholic nor diabetic.)

But on the other hand, I have to wonder why on earth Katzen's pricing starts $700 above the highest that I've heard in other places. What makes them so special?

Anyway, I remembered talking to Deirdre sometime ago about this, she had the proceedure done at LASIK plus down in Annapolis, though it was several years ago. But at the time she only paid something like $400 per eye. (Special promotion at the time)

What interests me there wasn't the price- I'm not expecting to find any such pricing like that at this point in time- but the fact that they did such a good job that sometime later on, an opthamologist performing an exam had no idea that she's had it done until she told her. Apparently there's usually a bit of scarring on the cornea, but she had none. And this was a bladeless procedure. Plus they offer free lifetime re-dos if needed in all but the most extreme cases, as long as you get your eyes checked by them every (um...certain amount of time, not sure) and they have locations all over the country. Katzen charges $250 per eye for re-do's and they're only here in Baltimore. Plus, I don't know anyone who's ever been to Katzen for LASIK.

So I was talking to Deirdre this evening, she offered to give me a ride down to the office in Annapolis if I made an appointment for an evaluation down there, and would take me down if I had the surgery done too.

So I was just kicking around on their website, and decided to try calling on a lark- didn't expect them to be open at this point, but they were. I made an appointment and talked about financing...they finance, as long as you make a down payment of at least $300. Guess once I find out how much it will actually cost me, I'll ask Leann to run some numbers on how much I want to take out of my paycheck and put into flexible spending, and make as big a down payment on that as I can.

So my evaluation appointment is on Friday the 29th.

Suddenly, I'm nervous.

Good grief, how did I forget to post this?

Everyone who sees this, right now, run don't walk here and buy two copies of Written in Wine.

WTF is that, you ask?

Written in Wine is a collection of devotional writings dedicated to the ancient Greek god Dionysos by his modern worshippers. The world of Dionysos is one of wildness, freedom, mystery and intoxication, a dangerous and boundary-blurring place where nature is alive with wonder. Come with us as we revel with the god on the mountainside and explore the furthest reaches of our own selves under his frenzied inspiration. Inside these pages you will find essays, poetry, rituals and fiction, as well as personal accounts of Dionysian experiences.

Not that you really needed a reason, but it includes a poem contributed by yours truly.

As if you really needed another reason, 25% of the proceeds will go to a charity as of yet to be determined.

Heck, buy three copies.