a view through my own eyes

I was going to rant when I originally decided what to blog tonight, but letting time pass a bit and pondering I do not think I have cause to rant for a novelty.

Four years ago through work I acquired an eMac, recently it has been doing random crashes and reboots. It is well out of warranty, but doing some nosing around it appears that there was a batch (of which mine is included) where there are dodgy capacitors on the motherboard. Handily on Apple’s website is confirmation of the problem and instructions to take affected machines in that batch to an Apple service depot where they will replace the board at no cost. So I called the local service depot and they confirmed that is the case and also applies to machines out of warranty. All I have to do now is get it to them and they will take care of things.

Excellent.

Just over a year ago I bought a new laptop, yesterday I confirmed that the battery had died. Today I phoned Apple and went through all the diagnostics, short version is that they will send me a new battery despite it not being covered by the extended warranty, all I have to do is return the old one. Using the prepaid courier stuff that they will send me with the new one.

Excellent.

Also my iPhone has partially died in that the internal speaker no longer works so I have to use speakerphone all the time. So as instructed I contacted O2 and explained what had happened. OK they said we will send you another one and you can return the faulty one.

Excellent.

Then I get another phone call from O2, because my phone is older than ninety days it is outside the automagic replacement period so I have to take it to an O2 store and sort things out there.

Not so excellent, but not a show stopper either.

At lunch today I went to the local O2 store, lunchtime means lack of iPhone returns trained staff so I had to wait around for a bit, so I grabbed some lunch which I had planned to do anyway. My phone has noe been sent off to Apple at O2’s cost for repair or replacement and I have managed to wangle a loan phone to use in the meantime. I will get a call in a few days when my phone is ready for collection from the store.

So all in pretty good.

In the meantime I have to learn to use a phone with more than one button!

I cannot really complain, I have just been unfortunate and Apple kit has been great for me over the years and in all cases things will be fixed at no cost to me.

About a week ago as a way of finishing the job I started, I decided to get an external USB hard disk case for mrspao’s old laptop disk. So placing an order and going for the free ‘it will get to you in five days’ shipping, things seemed sorted since when I ordered I was advised that it would ship via Royal Mail.

The week passed and the item had not arrived - which was fine as if it failed to deliver I could pick it up from the Royal Mail depot in Canterbury on the way home from work.

Today I get an email from Ebuyer confirming that the courier had tried to deliver but since I was not in that it had been taken to their depot. Sadly it was Citylink the most helpful courier service in the world. So I phone CityLink, who refuse to deliver the item to me at work unless the vender sends them an email or a fax confirming change of delivery details.

Aha! I thought, thinking that there was hope for me avoiding a trip to Ashford (twenty miles away) to pick up the package. So I phone Ebuyer explaining what has happened, the second part of the conversation went like this:

me: so if you could send them a fax or email asking them to redeliver to my work address that would be great.
them: yes we can do that but there will be a charge of five pounds.
me: excuse me?
them: they have attempted delivery, so to get it changed is classed as second delivery and we get charged for that.
me: but I can get them to deliver to my home address later in the week with no charge.
them: yes but this counts as a separate delivery.
me: OK what happens if they cannot deliver and return the items to you?
them: you get a refund.
me: for the full amount with no penalty charge?
them: yes that is correct.
me: OK let me clarify this, a change of delivery with the item already at the courier will cost me a fiver, yet I can get the item returned by not being at home with no charge and I get a full refund.
them: yes that is correct.
me: OK lets do that, once I get the refund confirmed I will reorder exactly the same items and give my work address

You just could not make it up.

Anyway, back at work, eye still hurts but at least the motion sickness seems to have passed.

WARNING: Self indulgent whining post follows.

Wandered into town today with mrspao, suffered breakfast in Cafe Rouge and then bought some pastries and more coffee from Karl’s under sufferance you understand.

Sadly whilst we went about our business the motion sickness and weird headache carried on about their business and left me feeling continually queasy and a tad unsteady on my feet. So from my point of view the day was a disaster anyway. Conveniently mrspao had the pleasure of the dentist this morning so was not in the mood to do anything exciting anyway. Yesterday I thought it was easing up and today it is back with a vengeance. Eating or fasting makes no difference since it is down to my brain dealing with the visual changes and this will sort itself out in time.

Today though I am just about pissed off with it all, it is a nice day and I would like to be out and about with my camera, instead I am resigned to painkillers and peace and quiet. Oh and the eye still bloody hurts if I move it - so I try not to.

This afternoon I decided I needed a kip at around 3pm, so off I went and crashed out. When I wake up I found that several hours have passed (so much for forty winks) and that mrspao has returned from work and also decided that a kip is in order.

Regaining consciousness a short while ago we decide to order food in as we are lazy. So going for a gamble we decide to try Dominos. I know people who have used them and have been moderately impressed since you can do cool things like online ordering.

So at the website we start going through the hoops and notice “any pizza any size 9.99″ bargain! “just choose meal deals 9.99 offer” fine - we can manage that. Except that the offer is not listed. Trying a postcode for somewhere else in the country it seems that those of us in the Canterbury area are not eligible. Oh well.

Not to be deterred we try and order something anyway, at which point “An error has occurred, please try again”. So we do, same message with added “Would you like technical assistance?” - actually no - I suspect that it is your webserver that needs technical assistance.

So much for online ordering.

Due to the power of Google and Adam’s Canterbury Menus page I have an online menu and a phone number. Excellent.

“Dominoes Pizza - we are busy” - beep - hold music.

Charming.

Give it a couple of minutes and I try again.

At which point the girl clearly rushes through order, the address with such speed that I am not actually certain whether I have ordered a pizza or not and most importantly whether she understood the “no cheese” bit. Allegedly my “order will be delivered in thirtfortyminutes” - CLICK.

We will see. At least they don’t have my credit card details.

In the meantime there appear to be some sausage rolls in the fridge.

UPDATE:

Roughly 20 mins after I posted the above, dinner arrived all correct and accounted for. Best of all the offer that I could not get on their broken website had applied anyway. Result.

Back to the hospital again today. This time for the pleasure of seeing the cornea consultant as a followup to the cornea rejection attempt earlier this year.

Whilst I waited for my appointment the head orthoptist walked past, noticed me, stopped and decided to check out how I was getting on - this was despite the fact that I saw her colleague earlier in the week. But who was I to grumble. Cosmetically things look good, so no complaints there, however there is a very slight wobble motion wise when I am moving the eye. This should sort itself out as the muscles and whatnot heal over the coming weeks. Anyway I have to see her again in early July so that is not a concern.

Anyway on to the cornea consultant, he takes a good look round the left eye, then decides to take a good look round the right eye. He then asks whether I am slightly sensitive to light in the left eye - I confirm that I am and that my night vision is noticeably better in that eye. Then he tells me that I am developing a cataract in my left eye.

The good news is that the cornea graft is looking very good and we can say that the rejection attempt is over, the bad part though is that the steroid eye drops (Pred Forte) that sort out cornea rejections on rare occasions cause cataracts.

At this point the head orthoptist appears and the conclusion is, to get the squint stuff sorted out over the coming weeks, then see the cornea consultant in three months at which point we then sort out the cataract situation. The wait for cataract operations is only a matter of weeks apparently.

Interestingly since I saw the optician a few weeks ago, my vision has changed again in my left eye for the better and there is no longer an asymmetrical astigmatism, this is something that we will keep an eye on. The important bit at the moment is to get the squint stuff finished off.

As the consultant put it, when I saw him in September 2005, I could not see with my left eye, and was advised that I would need a cornea transplant and probably squint surgery. Those two parts are done, I can now see with the eye although things are still being sorted out, the cataract issue is he says not really a worry and are straight forward to do. In my case though it may be best to do it under a general anesthetic due to the cornea situation. One bonus though that the consultant pointed out was that they can put a lens in to match the power of the other eye, so at least any glasses/contact lenses can be the same strength.

Still at the end of the day a cataract is fairly quick and easy to do, otherwise they would not have done around ten of them last tuesday when they were doing my squint op.

Well the eye seems to be settling down, pretty much off the painkillers except at night to ensure that I get a good nights sleep.

However now the general has worn off I am now certain that I have almost continual motion sickness - due to the fact that the eye is now pointing in a different direction by approximately forty degrees. The continual mild headache and nausea is somewhat annoying. Still at least I can be sure that I won’t get any fatter.

Anyhow the orthoptist had a good look round today and seems happy with how things are going, the motion sickness should settle down over the next few weeks. In the meantime no vigorous exercise i.e. football, rugby or swimming - I decided not to ask about the obvious.

So at moment I have another week off work to let things settle down and see how things go with instructions from my GP (who I saw this morning) to come back in a week if I still feel nausea.

Bond is back! As the cinema posters tend to say every time a new film is released.

This time though Bond is indeed back and in the same style as Fleming. Intended to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Fleming, Faulks has I feel performed an admirable task.

With an utterly mad villain assisted by a lunatic henchman who shows no qualms there are plots afoot to take over the world in a typically dastardly fashion.

Not having read a Fleming Bond book for many years it was a pleasure to pick up Faulks’ book and once again immerse myself into 1960’s world of James Bond: hard living and hard playing. After all who else would have scrambled eggs and a half a bottle of whiskey for breakfast?

In traditional style there is the getting to know you contest with the chief villain, not gambling or golf but tennis this time with the usual twists. Don’t forget car chases, shoot outs, break ins and outs, glamourous girls, a Bentley Continental and the Walther PPK.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and in many ways was taken back to my childhood when I originally read the books which I bought in well worn condition for a few pennies each, I think I still have them in a box in the garage where they are falling apart despite repairs with sticky tape.

Fantastic stuff, Bond is as he should be (unlike most of the films excepting: Dr No, From Russia with Love and Casino Royale) hard, brutal and not overly gadget laden (remote control invisible BMW my arse).

Finally many thanks to my brother for buying this for me.

This morning it occurred to me that it was Saturday - mainly because mrspao was flapping about school kids waiting for their bus outside our house as usual and she thought she would be late for work. I vaguely acknowledged that there had been a Friday in the dim and distant past so pointed out that they go to a private school and so have the pleasure of Latin on a Saturday morning. This lead me to thinking that Monday was work, Tuesday was operation and oh my it is Saturday.

The last few days have flown by, mainly due to pain killer enhanced drowsiness leading to sleep. I have achieved nothing other than finishing a book (one of the Reginald Hill’s) and sleeping. Whilst it feels like I have had a damn good kicking in the head, I can now sort of open the eye - it is after all somewhat bruised, I can move the eye - although it hurts (but then the muscles have been operated on - so it is expected) and I think I am now getting used to my vision being straight and so have stopped trying to veer right. The though is still a loverly shade of blood red and shows no sign of dissipating at the moment - which is sad as mrspao cannot look at it.

So the days at the moment are spent as follows: sleep, eat, take painkillers, read, sleep etc. With the odd visit on line to keep an eye of what is going on etc.

Gotta go, tired now. Night all.

A Clubbable Woman
An April Shroud
Deadheads
Arms and the Women
Death of Dalziel

Recently I have had a phase of reading Dalziel and Pascoe novels. I am not going to give a synopsis as they can be gleaned from the back covers of the books or Amazon. However over the time period that these were written, the first “A clubbable woman” was a straight forward who/why dunnit and the last more of a why dunnit/thriller. If anything this demonstrates Hill’s desire to to go beyond a traditional who dunnit and explore different ways that he can utilise his characters. For example in the first book Dalziel and Pascoe work together, the second is mainly Daziel (Pascoe is away), the third focusses backwards on who dunnit and why, the fourth is more about Pascoe’s wife and the last about Pascoe himself. If anything this demonstrates to me Hill’s development of the characters that he has created and by deliberately taking them and him out of their comfort zones.

I thoroughly enjoyed most of these, the weakest by a long way, however has to be Arms and the Women as it is not a who dunnit by any means, nor a why dunnit, it is most definately a thriller and I am not entirely certain that Hill succeeds in that format.

Eh?

Tramadol, ibuprofen and paracetamol mix, going to load you up now before we knock you out.

Yesterday I was back under the knife as my eyes were straightened out, mostly under a general but with adjustable stitches tweaked under a local later in the day.

Still feeling rather groggy, eye is somewhat bloodshot, I no longer have panorama vision and my spacial awareness is shot to pieces. Oh and it all hurts rather a lot.

Here is a picture (not for the squeamish).

Click to severely embiggen. If you look closely you can see the remaining stitches from the cornea transplant.