loss and gain
  • place: en route Köln, Germany - London (Clapham), England

19::March::2005 16:15 → permalink

after yesterday’s delay, finally arrive in England after a routine flight and no luck locating my lost sunglasses at Heathrow. so, this is the biggest material loss I’ve had on the road in years — actually can’t recall losing something that critical and expensive (impossible) to replace. the frame-style are no longer available to purchase, though perhaps I might be lucky to find an old pair somewhere as I did with my regular glasses. got those for $5 at a flea market in Maine in 1991. nice gold wire-rims. glasses are another one of those items that I have great difficulty in selecting. and actually, I haven’t had a different style since 1980 or so. the temples on my present frames are from glasses that I would wear after surfing, and the salt water in my hair corroded them a bit. the idea of having to get a new pair is daunting. and after getting a pair of reading glasses a couple years ago in Boulder (using the really small round frames that I bought in Paris in 1982), I found that it is brutally expensive to get glass lenses anymore. I don’t like the plastic ones as they are so Light they fly off the face easily, and they just don’t wear well over time (scratching). but I think this is a paradigm similar to the ink-jet printer business — where lenses are made to ‘wear out’ quickly, and you have to replace them on a regular basis. oh well, not facing it yet, but as soon as getting back to Arizona it becomes necessary to deal. it would be impossible to spend any time outdoors this summer there (and in Colorado) without having sunglasses. the UV radiation is exceptionally strong and I get fried eyes even with the old and very dark sunglasses. hmmmm.

Pete is into a finely eclectic range of music (fantastic vinyl collection!) — resonating my own criteria defined simply by the maxim “whatever sounds good.” he gives me a great intro to the whole Northern Soul situation from the 60′s and 70′s with a collection of 25-plus cd’s that, after I do a clean install of OSX on his G4 tower, I proceed to rip the collection for him.

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