A few weeks ago my eyes turned bright red. They didn’t hurt but something was clearly wrong. I stopped wearing my contacts for a few days and got rid of the infection that had settled in. In the meantime, I relearned what I already knew: my glasses prescription was woefully out of date. Like, when I got these glasses, Clinton was beginning his second term. They didn’t correct for my astigmatism and I had a headache after a few hours wearing them. And the frames were loose to boot.

So I bit the bullet and got new glasses. They’re a departure—I went to heavier Italian black frames, about ten years after everyone else did, and the effect is a cross between young Peter Sellers and early 1950s British Health birth control glasses. This post is, as they say on Fark, useless without pictures, so I’ll see what I can do about that.

But I had forgotten what it’s like getting used to new glasses. I need to keep my head very still or the distortions moving in my peripheral vision give my stomach flip flops. And trying to glance down at my iPod while driving in was a whole different experience again. Like: if I ever give up contacts for good, I might need to go to bifocals.

So: not exactly the total stylish package that I imagined. But at least I can see through them, when I look straight ahead. I think the bottom line is that I’m really glad that I can switch back to my contacts.

This is one of those days.

Nothing’s really wrong. I’m just weary of winter. The sun is out and I’m not out there. I really, really want to put my snowblower in the back of the garage and pull the grill to the front.

Every now and then, you lose one of the truly influential people in your life. Earlier this year, it was my grandfather. Last week, I got word that another one had passed on: Myrtle Talbott, who taught my once-a-week TAG class when I was in fourth and fifth grade, who was a longtime member of my church, and who was the first teacher I had who really stretched me.

Picture this: I’m in elementary school, glasses and so uncoordinated they give me extra time in the gym outside of classes so I can learn how to do something athletic without falling over. I’ve been through third grade and the teachers are so tired of trying to keep me engaged that they shift me off in the corner with a book. Then fourth grade starts and they round me up with a few other kids, put us on a bus, and send us to another school halfway across town, where Ms. Talbott waits for us, along with a Spanish teacher, CPR practice, creative writing instruction, real-life biology and science, and a bunch of kids who didn’t seem to mind that I was so odd. And she wouldn’t let me just slide by on glibly knowing the answers. Indeed, she was the first teacher I had who gave me an inkling of that uncomfortable truth: sometimes there are no right answers, only tough questions.

Later I saw her all the time in church, but I never made that connection again. She had already put me on the path and I needed to find my own way from there. But I still wish I had been able to come back and see her before she passed away. I don’t think I ever really thanked her for everything she did for me.

So if you see this and were one of her students, stop in at the guestbook and leave a tribute, won’t you? It seems a shame to leave it empty.

Couldn’t resist pointing to this article about Sharper Image’s bankruptcy filing. I remember back in the 1980s when they were the coolest thing around, at least to a 12 year old boy. Tons of gadgets and insanely expensive lifestyle gizmos.

What changed? Well, for one thing, fewer yuppies. For another, their target audience got older. You can’t continue to draw a new audience, particularly one willing to pay a hipness premium, when you’re pitching to their parents. Exhibit A: Turbo Groomer. No matter how you slice it, a nose and ear hair trimmer is never going to be hip. But the damned thing is always on page 2 of the Sharper Image SkyMall pages. Exhibit B: Fresher Longer. Sorry, guys, it’s Tupperware. No sale.

I was driving my 2003 Passat home from the office on Tuesday when something weird happened: the car started idling very rough at a stoplight. I haven’t had a car run that rough since the days when I was driving my 1977 MGB. I thought that perhaps I needed to get a tuneup. I did what I used to do on the MG: put the car in neutral and bring the engine speed up. That calmed the idle a little bit, but when I started driving it past the light the problem came back. Then the check engine light came on. And started flashing.

At that point, I should have pulled over and turned off the car, but I was less than a mile from home so I nursed it there and parked it. Then restrained myself from kicking the car.

The rough running turned out to be caused by misfires in two of my four cylinders; when I got the car home I was only running on two cylinders. I was without the car for two days while the dealer replaced two ignition coil packs that had failed and reprogrammed the car’s computer. To my relief the bill wasn’t exorbitant, but it makes me wonder whether the other two coils are due to go too.

The capper is that I happened to look up Volkswagen Passat in Wikipedia, and found this lovely piece of text for the Mark 5 version:

A common problem that arose along with the introduction of the 2001.5 "B5.5" models was a common failure of ignition coil packs. This problem applied only to owners with the 4 cylinder 1.8T engine, whose coil packs are marked with the part number "06B 905 115H". The solution is a simple swap of the coil pack for a newer version, a minor repair in both time and cost.

The article even cites a very detailed page on MyLemon.com about the problem, which apparently mostly affects late 2002 and early 2003 models. My car was one of the first 2003s.

So the question is: why hasn’t Volkswagen issued a recall of these cars?