Daryl wrote --

> didn't fly there instead of taking Amtrak?? I replied "I want to treat
a vacation like a Thanksgiving Day meal...savor every bite from the
dinner roll to the pumpkin pie. 

  Good analogy.  --swipe--

> I don't want to "wolf it down", like I did working 

  I have a very bad habit of wolfing down my food as well.  At home I
think nothing of it, but when I'm with others I have to keep reminding
myself "slow down".
  To me food is simply fuel for the body.  The reason I'm as happy with a
bowl of corn flakes as with a big juicy steak.
  
> DS >> of the parking lot (I think I've told that story before). 
> 
> JM>  I don't think so.

   LOL.
   I really liked the line about the seeing eye dog tied to the front
bumper!

>   I had been severely nearsighted since elementary school...wearing
> glasses since 4th grade. The teacher said that "I couldn't tell time",
> and my parents said "He can tell time...he can't see the clock!!".
  
   I had poor eye sight since a kid as well.  It was some what gradual.
   In grade school tests were written on the board and even in the front
row I couldn't read the board and had to walk up to it.
   My father couldn't believe a child of his could be "defective" and I
was unable to see.  It was all in my mind, etc.  (Otherwise he was the
best father anyone could have).
   I haunted junk shops trying on glasses until I found a pair I could
see out it then having to hide them at home, otherwise they would be
taken away since he said it would damage my eyes after he found me
wearing the first pair.
   When I was 13 my got my first pair of real glasses and could see the
world in focus all the time.
   All my life I wore coke bottle lenses and hated them.  In my mid 30s
the price of contacts had come down, got them and never looked back.  (I
do wear glasses once a week while my eyes are "resting" and the contacts
being cleaned. 
 
> it was determined I needed cataract surgery.

  Thankfully I've never had that.

> The no stitch cataract surgery was invented by Dr. Mike McFarland,
namesake of the eye center. When it came out, they thought he was
nuts...now, it's the industry standard.

  Isn't it strange in medicine (and science) something new comes along
and it pooh-poohed by others then eventually becomes the norm?

> My visual acuity went from 20/2000, with THICK
> glasses, and severe nearsightedness...to 20/20 with a little bit of
> astigmatism,

  Mine were never that bad but do have a bit of stigmatization in one eye.
  Once in a while I need readers (esp. if small print) but generally don't.  
  Then there are times I do and the next time I don't.  Or to put it
another way, sometimes I don't need them and sometimes I do.  
 
>   To this day, I have people ask if I need help getting out of parking
> lots, and parking decks...I'll never live it down!! <BG>

  Don't ya love how some people never let you live something down?  
 
>   But, if you can't laugh at yourself, you have a lot of problems.

  Ain't it the truth!
  Oh, you mentioned being lost in a parking lot.  I never consider myself
lost, I'm just on an unexpected side trip.  
  Joe
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