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 Welcome to episode 90 of the Book of Donovan. I am Donovan.

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 Today is Tuesday, October 20th, 2026.

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 I don't even remember what the number on the calendar is concerning days of alcohol retirement.

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 Hang on a second, I'll go check.

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 And through the magic of editing and a pause button,

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 Today is 1,244 days of alcohol retirement.

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 I don't really have an agenda for this episode other than one thing that I'd like to talk about.

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 So I guess in a way I do have an agenda.

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 I think I just lied to you.

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 My apologies.

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 I didn't mean to do that.

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 So a few weeks ago, I went to the eye doctor, something I have been putting off, not necessarily

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 dreading, but putting off because, honestly, I didn't want to spend the money.

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 I didn't want to spend the money for the eye exam.

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 I also didn't want to hear that after 20 years, I was going to need glasses.

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 Now, you may be asking, 20 years, what are you talking about?

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 Let me explain.

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 And I think I've mentioned this before.

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 Hell, I may even mention that I was going to the eye doctor.

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 Honestly, I can't keep track of this stuff.

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 And I'm a terrible podcaster because I'm not going to go back and review my previous episodes

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 and go, did I talk about this?

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 I guess I could use the wiki that I created with the aid of Claude Code, but I'm lazy.

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 So anyway, in 2006, I had LASIK.

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 Prior to that, I had needed some type of corrective lenses, whether that be glasses or contacts, since I was in fourth grade.

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 And I wore glasses up until I think I was 16 when I got my first contacts.

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 And you may, I don't even know if they're still around or not, but you may recall Pearl Vision

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 Centers. There was one in Tifton, Georgia. I was living in Fitzgerald at the time because that's

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 where I'm born and raised. And so we actually went to Pearl Vision Center here in Tifton because

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 that's where I live now, got the eye exam, and then got contacts. Now, growing up, I was the type

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 of person that I could not stand anything to touch my eyeballs.

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 You know, even trying to put eye drops in my eyes was, I mean, it took a bit, all right?

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 And so you can imagine how this, trying to learn how to put contacts in, was a feat.

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 It was such a feat that I got such a headache after finally getting them in

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 because they made me, and rightfully so, they made me put the contacts in,

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 take the contacts out, and put the contacts in like two or three times

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 to make sure that I got it down.

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 And I remember laying in the back seat of the car on the way home

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 with such a massive headache, and, yeah, I had the contacts in.

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 And not only did I go from wearing glasses to contacts, I went balls to the wall and got the 30-day, don't-have-to-take-them-out-but-once-every-30-day contacts.

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 Probably not the best thing to do for someone who had just started wearing contacts, but it also lessened the amount of times that I had to take them out, put them back in, etc., etc.

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 I think they've now determined, probably sometime long ago, that wearing contacts for 30 days

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 was probably not the smartest move.

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 And then they went to like once a week or once every two weeks, which is honestly, in

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 my last couple of years of wearing contacts, that's kind of where I went.

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 I even started buying my contacts from 1-800-CONTACTS, you know, my special eyes.

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 And then in 2006, I had LASIK, which, to pardon the pun, was eye-opening because no longer

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 did I have to worry about getting up in the middle of the night and not being able to see

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 to go take a piss because if you know anything about eye prescriptions, both of my eyes were

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 negative 3.5. I was basically blind except really, really close up, all right? And so I definitely

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 had to have corrective eyewear, whether that was glasses or contacts. And honestly, in the last

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 couple of years, I had started just reverting back to wearing glasses. So LASIK was, again,

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 pardon the pun, eye-opening. It was fantastic, and I loved it because once they were done,

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 I had 20-20 vision.

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 Now, granted, I did have some side effects.

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 And those side effects were, I was more sensitive to bright lights.

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 Driving at night, lights were, I had the halos.

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 Let's put it that way.

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 And I still don't like driving at night.

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 But for the longest time, I mean, you know, it was great.

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 I didn't have to worry about not being able to see when I got up in the middle of the night

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 to take a leak or anything like that.

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 I could wear the type of sunglasses that I wanted to wear.

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 Then around about 2015, and I had heard this, I'd never, ever, ever had a problem seeing

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 up close.

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 I was nearsighted, which meant I could see close up, but I couldn't see far off.

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 Never had an issue being farsighted until 2015.

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 When I started my company in 2015 as an IT professional and MSP and all of that, I started

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 noticing that I was having a little bit of difficulty reading like MAC addresses and

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 serial numbers and things like that on devices.

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 And so eventually, we got these from Amazon, these readers, and I mean, you can get them

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 from Walmart and all these other places.

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 I think my current ones are like plus 2.25, but seeing far off, I was still fine, but I was starting to develop an issue with being farsighted, which apparently is a common thing for someone who had LASIK once you get into your 40s, because in 2015, I was 45.

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 And so I just, I dealt with that. And then my wife had, she was diagnosed with young cataracts. And then to illustrate how bad her eyes were, I think her prescriptions were like negative six point something in each eye. She was basically blind.

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 And so in 2023, we got cataract surgery for both our eyes.

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 Everything went off without a hitch.

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 And then it was almost like the universe had just been holding out and said,

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 okay, we didn't need both of you not being able to drive.

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 So, bam, now it's your turn.

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 And I started noticing that I was having a little bit of difficulty seeing far off.

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 It was subtle.

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 It was specifically in my right eye to start with.

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 I could sit and watch television, and I got to noticing that things were a little hazy,

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 a little blurry, you know, the text.

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 And I would close my left eye, and then I closed my right eye,

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 and everything was crystal clear with my left eye until it wasn't.

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 And so it just started getting progressively worse.

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 And so I bit the bullet because I was also concerned that was I developing cataracts

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 because there was no way I could drop another $11,000.

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 Yes, yes, I know.

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 Pick yourself up off the fucking floor, dude.

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 $11,000 to have cataract surgery for my wife.

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 I had to literally borrow the money from one of my kids.

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 And, you know, we worked out an arrangement,

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 and I'm paying him back, you know, so much per month.

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 But anyway, I went to the eye doctor.

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 No cataracts, no other issues.

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 Minor scarring, but nothing major from the LASIK in 2006.

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 I'm sorry, 2005.

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 My bad.

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 I had my wisdom teeth removed in 2006.

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 2005, we were still living in Fitzgerald.

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 2006, we had moved to Tifton, and that's when I had my wisdom teeth cut out.

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 All four of them at once.

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 Joy.

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 It was fantastic.

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 Yes, that was dripping in sarcasm.

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 All right. So 21 years ago, my bad. So yeah, anyway, basically I've got my prescription over

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 there, but my eyes aren't anywhere as bad as they were when I was in fourth grade or right before I

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 got LASIK. I'm like negative one in something, negative point something, any other. But I also

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 have, I think, 2.5 is what I need for correction on reading up close. And so I was like, I'm going

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 to try Warby Parker. You and I have seen the commercials ad nauseum over the years. They

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 always tout, you know, the $95, blah, blah, blah, blah. And if all you need are basic corrective

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 lenses, then that's true. But I needed, I didn't want to do the traditional bifocals. And Warby

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 Parker only does progressive lenses when it comes to that. They don't do traditional bifocals.

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 So I was like, okay, we're going to go with that, right? $520 for these glasses, $520.

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 They were precision progressives, which is supposed to make it.

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 Apparently, the traditional progressive, and even the eye doctor explained this to me,

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 it kind of narrows your field of vision, and on the periphery, things are blurry.

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 So I went with the precision.

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 I got the transition lenses because, you know, my eyes are still sensitive to bright lights.

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 And I got them yesterday.

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 I like the frames.

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 I got them yesterday.

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 I put them on and holy fuck, far off, great, I could see.

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 But trying to sit at my desk and look at a computer monitor or computer monitors and

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 I'm roughly 18 inches probably away from the screens, I couldn't see the damn screens.

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 And I mean, I could try to play this game of moving my head up and down and finding the

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 sweet spot, but I was like, no, no, no, no, no, this is not going to work.

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 I took them. I walked around outside. The transition worked great. I could stand at my

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 office and look across the pond and damn near see all kinds of details from a football field

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 length away. But I think I decided yesterday I had made an error that I am not going to be the

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 kind of person that can use progressive lenses for certain. I might could do traditional bifocals,

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 but again, as I said, Warby Parker does not do that. Fortunately, they have a 30-day money-back

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 guarantee slash exchange. I could have just said to hell with it, got my money back, send the glasses

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 back and do something local. But I was like, I sent an email to their help at warbyparker.com

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 and I gave them my order number and I said, look, I tried it. I know it's only a day.

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 It's customary to give yourself two or three days to try to get, I just don't think I can get

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 accustomed to these. It's just not working. I mean, I'm literally having to take them off to

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 be able to see the screen. And as they pointed out, and I understand this, going with single

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 vision, which is what they call when you don't get progressives. The single vision will probably

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 not going to help me when trying to sit here and look at my monitors. That's fine. I'll just take

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 the damn things off. The eye doctor did give me a separate prescription for doing computer work.

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 Problem is, I don't have the funds to buy two pairs of glasses. Now, granted, when you're doing

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 single vision, that extra cost for the progressive lenses, it's not there. So I think it's going to

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 cost me $220. I've got to send my glasses back, which they immediately sent me a label, printed it

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 out, put it on the box, put it in the mailbox. It's going out today. They've already issued a

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 new order to make me new glasses as soon as they get these in. So I'm hopeful, if nothing else,

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 I'll wear these as my daily driver, so to speak, like whenever I'm actually driving or

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 watching television where I really do need to be able to see the images more in detail.

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 I'm sitting here, you know, if they're not usable sitting in front of a computer screen,

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 that I just won't wear them, and eventually I may see about getting a pair made

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 with the other prescription.

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 We'll see.

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 But, yeah, that's my experience with Warby Parker.

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 I don't have anything negative to say about them right now.

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 I mean, honestly, it takes too damn long to get the glasses.

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 It can take up to 14 days to, you know, once your order's submitted and all of that.

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 And I mean, they give you, you can track it kind of like you can with a pizza at Domino's.

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 You can track it, order received.

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 They're making your frames, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, QA, and then they get shipped.

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 And honestly, from the time they said they ship them to the time I got, I think I got

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 the notice, it was either Wednesday or Thursday of last week to let me know that my glasses

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 had shipped.

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 And then I received them yesterday on Monday.

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 So that timing's not bad.

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 i just don't see why it takes 14 damn days to make glasses i'm pretty confident that if i went to

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 one of the local eyeglass places and and we've we've got uh honestly we've got family what i call

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 friends of the family where we normally get our glasses done for the kids and my wife and all of

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 that but i i don't like where they're located they're located in downtown tifton and so the

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 Parking is just complete shit.

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 You know, it's angled parking, which is better than traditional parallel parking because I can't parallel park where the fuck.

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 But the problem is with the angled parking is if you park next to a big-ass vehicle, you're playing a game with death almost when you're trying to back out and not get rear-ended and not in a good way.

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 trying to get out of there and so i was like you know i'm just going to give warby parker a shot

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 and i did and we'll see how these glasses turn out i mean best case scenario they work for me

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 i just can't wear them while i'm working on a computer looking at staring at these uh these

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 screens um worst case scenario i i get a refund and i have to go somewhere local and just see if

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 we can work something out better. I don't know. Anyway, that's my story. That's all I have to add

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 today. I'm also going to be using a different way of editing and producing this episode. I've been

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 trying Logic Pro because I'm doing the Apple Creative Suite thing because I've been learning

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 Final Cut Pro for video. I'm trying to stop paying Adobe almost $20, $23 or $24 a month for

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 using Audition, even though I've used Audition for over a decade now. I can't wrap my head around

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 Logic Pro. I've got a friend of mine who sent me some stuff, some tutorials that he made. I just,

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 I can't wrap my head around it. It's probably a great program if you're a musician, and that's

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 what you're using it for, because that's my understanding. That's what it was targeted for

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 initially, but it's just too much. So I'm going to be playing around with Audacity 4.0 with the

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 plug-in and some other settings that I've worked with AI to help me figure out as far as some EQ

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 of the voice. Basically, I said, here's my workflow in Audition. How can I replicate that

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 as closely as possible using audacity 4.0 and that's what we're going to be attempting to do

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 in this episode wish me luck uh i'll put in the show notes if i wound up reverting back to audition

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 to get this one out if i couldn't couldn't get the sound like i want it but otherwise uh that's

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 that's what it's going to do i also had uh cloud code uh build me a little project uh so that i can

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 do i can basically upload upload the mp3 to it and it'll level everything out to uh negative 16

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 luffs which is the sweet spot for uh for stereo audio um for vocals that kind of thing anyway i

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 want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this i know you've got other better quality

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 podcasts to listen to so if you made it this far thank you for the well the raw audio audio

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 showing about 20 minutes.

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 So thank you for taking the time

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 to listen to me for basically 15 to 20 minutes.

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 Get back to your day.

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 I hope you're doing well.

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 Take care of yourself and your significant others

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 if you have them in your life.

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 Call up some friends you haven't talked to in a while.

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 Hug your loved ones.

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 And I'll see you in the next episode.

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 Thanks for listening.

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 Ta-ta.