We were on the way to Dublin airport to collect my parents. My brother Declan was driving, the ‘Thompson Twins’ were playing on the car’s cassette deck. I was 13 years old.

Declan was asking me to tell him when words on road signs came into focus for me. At school, I’d been noticing that I had to sit closer to the front of the classroom to read the board properly. The road signs came into focus later for me than they did for Declan. A few weeks later I had my first pair of glasses.

I didn’t like wearing them, and only wore them when I had to. When it came time for university, I bought some contact lenses with the money that I earned from my summer job.

Since then I’ve been wearing contact lenses or glasses and become increasingly dependent on them as my prescription changed.

A few weeks ago I was at the optician’s for a checkup. I halfheartedly asked him about laser vision surgery. He studied my records and told me that I’d be a good candidate. Within 24 hours my halfhearted interest turned into a definite desire. I thought to myself … even if I only had 20/20 vision for a couple of years after surgery, it would be amazing to experience that again. Contact lens were tiring my eyes out, glasses were becoming thicker and heavier.

I went for a consultation, then measurement at the laser surgery place, and last Friday I was scheduled for my operation.

It is an impressive process. They have equipment that can very accurately measure the capabilities and sizes of your eyes. They check and double check, then triple check the prescription. Their machine measures in decimal places, whereas a regular optician measures in .25 increments.

The operation felt a bit like how I imagine it would be being abducted by aliens. I lay under a machine, looking at a light, while a doctor put things in my eyes to keep them open and fixed in place. Then they turned the laser on. A 40 second blast for each eye in my case. My eyes were filled with drops and fluid, but I could see the light changing through it all.

It was an uncomfortable operation, but the whole thing only lasted about 20 minutes. I had to sit for a half hour so that things could settle, then the doctor looked at my eyes. He said it went well.

I could see things in focus, but beneath a fog. For that evening and the next day, I was pretty much falling asleep whenever I sat down. It was the weekend. On Sunday morning I woke up and could see the thin clear line of light beneath the curtain. Normally it is a thick blur of light. I thought … “Oh my God, I can see clearly”. I focused all around the room – the numbers on the alarm clock, the second hand on my watch, the spider’s web in the corner!

It is only just a week ago. I’m still getting used to my eyesight. It isn’t perfect yet, but is very good. My eyes have been dry and tired as they recover. I have some slight halo problems at night time, but I can live with them. It is amazing. They say my sight will improve as my eyes heal and stabilize over the coming months.

I still can’t believe that I did it! But so far, so good …

Even though it is the close season for most of European Football ( soccer ) I still can't get enough news. I can't wait until the new season kicks off in less than a month. I'm a Man City fan - the wealthiest club in the world, and they've been doing their best this summer to spend some of the billions at their disposal. They've signed 80 million UKP on just four very strong players, and are chasing a few more. Real Madrid spent the same amount of money on just one player - Christiano Ronaldo. However,  it isn't those stories that ...

Canada Day was on a Wednesday this year, neatly dividing the week in two. We took the bus into the city around 10AM to join the celebrations. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="McConville family holding an Olympic torch"][/caption] We saw the PM and Governor General arrive ( with serious RCMP pomp ). The snowbirds dazzled us with their fly-overs and we took in some of the sights and sounds around Major Hills Park before stopping for lunch on a courtyard and coming home with two worn out children. We also held an olympic torch and met a gold medal winner. Next year's Winter Olympics ...

We had a father's day ramble further down the Rideau Canal today. Toby found a millipede wandering along a path, so we 'fashioned' a paper envelope for it, and sneaked it home ( Tracy did not support this idea ). [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="North American Millipede in bug jar"][/caption] It is an interesting creature ... with ( we've since learned ) between 46 and 400 pairs of legs! We ( I ) believe that it has also laid some eggs in the bug jar. We'll be releasing it soon into our composter, or into the woods near us ... but we're ...

One of the peripheral things that I used to like when I worked at Nortel was glimpsing the daily family life of the returning Canada Geese each Spring. The Nortel campus was/is beautifully landscaped. Every year the Canada Geese would return to one of the campus ponds and start quickly raising new families. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="727" caption="Geese and Goslings"][/caption] Each day as you drive past one of the ponds there, you'll see the flossy little green goslings grow into huge noisy adults that will wisely depart for warmer climes in the fall. Especially when my kids were a bit smaller I could ...

Hickory.ca is undergoing a bit of a revamp. I've been playing around with the styles a bit, trying to remember and relearn the CSS that I used to know, and making some space for a projects page that will come along later. I called my new WordPress theme 'L'Etoile Mysterieuse' - there isn't too much going on with the page visually, but I sampled colors from the fantastic book by Herge.

Last weekend was a busy one. Toby turned 8, and also celebrated his first communion and confirmation. We had a little bit of a party afterwards with some of his friends and their parents at our place. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Toby looking serious at his first communion and confirmation"][/caption] It seems like a blink of an eye since Toby was born. It was almost surprising me to be sitting beside him in the church before he made his way up for first communion. He has certainly grown up! Now both of our kids can receive communion at mass. Toby's sacraments were the ...

An an unwelcome, ill-timed fire alarm at my Hotel this morning, caused me to miss the first session at the conference today. If I’d pushed myself I could have got there a little bit late and snuck in, but I decided to take my time. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Exciting view from the balcony of my room in Toronto"][/caption] So my first session was ‘Professionally Pushing Pixels’ by Ralph Hauwert. It was another fantastic talk. He wove a story that dipped into his influences as a kid ( ninjas, robots and the Commodore 64 ) and connected dots from them to projects ...

Yesterday I made my first ever Canadian train trip from Ottawa to Toronto where I'm attending the FITC conference. The train trip was nice - definitely the best way to get from Ottawa to Toronto, though they could maybe blow the whistle a bit less!! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Blurry iPhone photo of 'Beautiful Algorithms' presentation."][/caption] I didn't really know what to expect of FITC - I'd luckily been given a conference ticket and wanted to make the most of it, and was glad that I did ... FITC began life a few years ago as 'Flash In The Can' - a Canadian centred ...

A note pinned to our kitchen pinboard tells me that it is 'Earth Week' at Jake and Toby's school. It appears to be an international event. A few weeks ago there was a lot of attention for 'Earth Hour'. Maybe it is asking our moral attention spans too much to take notice of a whole week, but I haven't heard nearly as much about this event until now. Their school has creatively planned items for each day. We're encouraged to pack litter-less lunches for them. I'd thought we did pretty well with our lunches until my conscience was pricked to make them totally litter free. ...