2009 Feb 08 | vision screenings, Joystix, HUSH


One of our "classes" is vision screenings at local schools and community centers. Some of the ones we go to have predominantly Spanish speakers, but thankfully one of the upperclassmen made a cheat sheet with a complete eye exam in English and Spanish side-by-side, which has been very useful.



I love it when a string of red lights turn green as you get close to each one.



That's a lot of pallets.



I wonder how much that phone number is worth.



This tree was tipped over during the hurricane. They chopped up and hauled away most of it, but so far they've left the base.



On the first and last Friday of every month, Joystix (a place that buys and sells used arcade games) has Pac Man Fever. You pay $15 to get in and then all the games are on free play. There's also a bar in the same building, so it's really more of an adults event, although I've seen a few kids there with their parents. The have older games, like here are Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II: Championship Edition. I actually printed out a moves list for MKII because I had forgotten some of them. I just left it by the machine for other people to use, too.



I don't think I've ever played a pinball machine where the mini-flippers near the top were of any use at all.



Wow, a Zoltar machine.



They had a few racing games you could play against a friend. There was also this really neat-looking flying game. And beside it was one of those little game stations they have in bars.



I love the "find the difference" games, especially since I'm good at using the whole "cross your eyes" trick on them.



Some guys playing a 4-player TMNT game. The nice thing about having the games on free play is you can play through an entire game and not have to worry about how much you would be spending otherwise. The guy on this side actually sat down in a big old comfy chair.



Traffic was really backed up on the highway, so some people drove across this area to get onto the feeder.



And in this case, the feeder was actually much faster than the highway.



This falling-down fence is around the Pasadena Maintenance Services, which I found rather ironic.



Another vision screening in Pasadena. This wasn't through the school, though; it was with Prevent Blindness. I showed up all ready to do retinoscopy and direct ophthalmoscopy like we do at the UHCO screenings, but they just used the automated machines for visual acuity and visual fields. Which makes sense, I guess, because it's mostly undergrad pre-optometry students who volunteer. I pretty much directed traffic the entire time because whenever they announced there was a vision screening we'd get a big group of people.



It was part of a larger health fair, and they had lots of other stations. I think the clown making balloon animals was the most popular, though.



I looked through the help programs for my printer on how to replace the ink cartridges for about 15 minutes until I finally found it. "Turn printer on, open cover." I guess they didn't make it easy to find because it should be so obvious, but I kept trying to do it with the printer off.



Saturday night some of us went to HUSH, a nightclub out by Katy. It's a long ways, but we can get in free with someone who does promotions there.



An outdoor patio area that plays different music from inside.



A bartender that only has bottles. She's my favorite employee, though, because she actually dances to the music a lot.



I wonder if some engineer decided excatly how many and what size of hooks and chains they needed to hold the giant speakers up, or if they just winged it. Hopefully the former. Either way, you can feel the music from pretty much anywhere in the club, which I love.



A couple of gals dancing on the platforms. Silly white girls, get down and let the black women show you how it's done.



I wonder if anything I own other than floss was made in Ireland.



Arg, this guy put his blinker on to get into the lane to merge onto the freeway, but then he left it on. Usually that doesn't bother me too much, but it was early in the morning, which meant I was still halfway asleep and it was still pretty dark, so a bright flashing light for a few minutes was really annoying.



These are weird trees. All their bark falls off and their needles clump up. They actually kind of freak me out; it just doesn't seem natural.