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dime_novel_heroI have worn goggles through my entire presence within the steampunk community. Not just goggles but a specific style of goggles, those with round lenses and eye shields. I would wear them on arrival at the con and not appear in public throughout the rest of the con. I recall one time, at an after con dinner, it was dark and the con was over so I finally reverted to my normal glasses and, seeing my eyes for the first time, Bluebeard said he was sort of freaked out.
My first goggles were a pair of German safety glasses with faux-leather eye shields, with a Girl Genius rebranding and reselling by Phil and Kaja Foglio. I had prescription lenses put in to replace the stock tinted lenses. And when the prescription changed, I had those lenses replaced.
The next pair were Sterling 23s Kickstarted by O'Riginals Trading Company. They had metal mesh eye shields and I got prescription lenses for those, too. And again when they needed changed. And, well, that’s when it started to go bad.
You see, my optometrist of many years was bought out by MyEyeDr.com. Even so, rather than seeking out a new shop, I just went there. The eye exam was what one would expect. My prescription had changed and so, since my Sterlings had older prescriptions I decided they would get the new lenses.
The cost would be $400!
I was shocked. Previously, just getting lenses in extant frames had cost me nothing because whatever the cost was, it was under the $100 glasses allowance of my insurance. Here, the insurance would cover most of the cost but the lenses would still cost me $160. I chocked it up to inflation.
Two weeks later, my glasses should have been done but I had received no notification. I called and was told that had been delivered wrong and so they were sent back. Two weeks after that I had not been called so I called and found there was some issue with the insurance, having been somehow confused by the glasses being sent back. That took time to sort out and when I was, again NOT informed, I called back to find out that the glasses had again been done wrong. It seems that they were unable to figure out how to put the eye shields back on.
Weren’t they there when they took them off? Didn’t the see what they were doing at stage one.
The shop asked me what I wanted done and I said that I wanted what I had paid for, new lenses in my frames. Completely put together. Not a pile of parts. I was not a kind and understanding customer at this point. It had been eight weeks, they had been done wrong twice, I had to have called them each time because they never communicated anything, and it was something that had been done properly many times before for a fraction of the cost and without issue.
Eventually, at ten weeks total, they responded via email (apparently incapable or unwilling to pick up a phone and call me directly) to say that the lab was unable to put the glasses back together and that any attempt to do so would require sending them to a “specialty” lab and would take an additional month. They, of course, wouldn’t be doing that even if I asked. They would get the glasses back in their disassembled state and refund my money.
When I went back to the shop to get my refund and pile of parts, I instantly saw the problem they were incapable of solving. The eye shields had a thin strip of metal that is fit in between the lens and the frame. The lenses were cut to fit the frames exactly and no allowance was made for the shields. I could see in the old lenses returned to me where the previous QUALIFIED optician had realized just this, had taken the lenses in hand, and with a wheel grinder, trimmed down the edges of the lenses slightly so that the eye shields would fit.
It was something an optician had done multiple times previously It was something I could have done if I had the tools and a little bit of experience.
It was something that MyEyeDr.com was not only incapable of doing but also were too ignorant and inexperienced to even realize.
I now need to seek out a local optician with an in-house lab to grind a little bit off the lenses to make them work.
But in the meantime, I didn’t want to be completely without goggles. And so I went on line and found Vanguard Cyclist Glasses from some Chinese company called Optical Factor. It was $50 for the frames, $40 dollars for the prescription lenses, and it was delivered, from China, in two weeks (just before the fuckwit we have for a president started tariffing everyone in a pump and dump scheme not very much unlike the grift from MyEyeDr.com).
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.”
--- Oscar Wilde.
--- Oscar Wilde.
My first goggles were a pair of German safety glasses with faux-leather eye shields, with a Girl Genius rebranding and reselling by Phil and Kaja Foglio. I had prescription lenses put in to replace the stock tinted lenses. And when the prescription changed, I had those lenses replaced.
The next pair were Sterling 23s Kickstarted by O'Riginals Trading Company. They had metal mesh eye shields and I got prescription lenses for those, too. And again when they needed changed. And, well, that’s when it started to go bad.
You see, my optometrist of many years was bought out by MyEyeDr.com. Even so, rather than seeking out a new shop, I just went there. The eye exam was what one would expect. My prescription had changed and so, since my Sterlings had older prescriptions I decided they would get the new lenses.
The cost would be $400!
I was shocked. Previously, just getting lenses in extant frames had cost me nothing because whatever the cost was, it was under the $100 glasses allowance of my insurance. Here, the insurance would cover most of the cost but the lenses would still cost me $160. I chocked it up to inflation.
Two weeks later, my glasses should have been done but I had received no notification. I called and was told that had been delivered wrong and so they were sent back. Two weeks after that I had not been called so I called and found there was some issue with the insurance, having been somehow confused by the glasses being sent back. That took time to sort out and when I was, again NOT informed, I called back to find out that the glasses had again been done wrong. It seems that they were unable to figure out how to put the eye shields back on.
Weren’t they there when they took them off? Didn’t the see what they were doing at stage one.
The shop asked me what I wanted done and I said that I wanted what I had paid for, new lenses in my frames. Completely put together. Not a pile of parts. I was not a kind and understanding customer at this point. It had been eight weeks, they had been done wrong twice, I had to have called them each time because they never communicated anything, and it was something that had been done properly many times before for a fraction of the cost and without issue.
Eventually, at ten weeks total, they responded via email (apparently incapable or unwilling to pick up a phone and call me directly) to say that the lab was unable to put the glasses back together and that any attempt to do so would require sending them to a “specialty” lab and would take an additional month. They, of course, wouldn’t be doing that even if I asked. They would get the glasses back in their disassembled state and refund my money.
When I went back to the shop to get my refund and pile of parts, I instantly saw the problem they were incapable of solving. The eye shields had a thin strip of metal that is fit in between the lens and the frame. The lenses were cut to fit the frames exactly and no allowance was made for the shields. I could see in the old lenses returned to me where the previous QUALIFIED optician had realized just this, had taken the lenses in hand, and with a wheel grinder, trimmed down the edges of the lenses slightly so that the eye shields would fit.
It was something an optician had done multiple times previously It was something I could have done if I had the tools and a little bit of experience.
It was something that MyEyeDr.com was not only incapable of doing but also were too ignorant and inexperienced to even realize.
I now need to seek out a local optician with an in-house lab to grind a little bit off the lenses to make them work.
But in the meantime, I didn’t want to be completely without goggles. And so I went on line and found Vanguard Cyclist Glasses from some Chinese company called Optical Factor. It was $50 for the frames, $40 dollars for the prescription lenses, and it was delivered, from China, in two weeks (just before the fuckwit we have for a president started tariffing everyone in a pump and dump scheme not very much unlike the grift from MyEyeDr.com).
