Autumn in Logan

Tuesday evening we had Surendra (a Thermo Fisher Scientific colleague of mine who works out of Bangalore, India) and his wife Vidya over for dinner. Suren (nickname) is an engineer and Vidya is a physician. We prepared a vegetarian meal. They were pleasantly surprised to learn that we drank no alcohol and did not smoke. We enjoyed learning about one another. Suren had been in the US for about 4 weeks, with Vidya joining him just this last week. They were adventuresome and had fun driving on the wrong side of the road (for them) and visiting places like Yellowstone and Jackson Hole on the weekend.
Suren and Vidya about to sample bland american vegetarian fare.

On Thursday Gayle and I ventured down to Sandy to get fully checked out as potential IntraLase or PRK candidates (two different ways of doing laser eye surgery). We have to take Gayle back because some recent contact problems she has had made it difficult to determine whether her corneas are shaped properly for either surgery to work well. I, on the other hand, could be a fine PRK candidate (astigmatism makes this a better choice than IntraLase to avoid potential cornea issues after surgery). However, due to our advanced age (baby-boomers), the chances are that we'll get cataracts down the road and need intra-ocular lenses anyway, so we need to weigh whether to bother getting laser surgery now. Also, I would need to decide whether to do mono-vision (one eye for distance, the other for reading), or get both done for distance and wear reading glasses, or just do one eye (my dominant eye- right) for distance and keep my left for reading (since it is less myopic). Basically, we have several decisions to make, and the expense is not insignificant. The clinic (several staff and a doctor) spent all afternoon with us. We were amazed at how thorough and honest they were with us. They weren't trying to push the laser surgery at all, and even brought up the cataract issue and whether we would even want lasik at this point. In the process, they discovered I have drusen (plural of druse, a German word) on my right retina. These are deposits of degenerated proteins and are a precursor of Dry Macular Degeneration, which generally leads to Wet Macular Degeneration over time, if not checked. See this site for information if you're interested:

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/macular-degeneration/DS00284/DSECTION=causes

A combination of vitamins and minerals seems to stave off progression of Macular Degeneration, so we've already bought some supplements they recommended. We also have a list of foods rich in lutein and a related pigment that help. Two plants rich in these anti-oxidants are kale and collard greens.
I'm holding kale in my right hand and collards in my left. I kind of like them, but Gayle doesn't like the bitter taste, even though she's from the South.

Craig Mortensen and I sang "Secret Prayer" in Sacrament meeting today. We sang the last two verses and choruses in Spanish. Hector Mendiola, a friend of ours from Mexico, D.F., even came out hear us.

Gayle and I couldn't think of other interesting things to put on the blog this week, so we had our neighbor shoot some photos of us on a pile of leaves this evening to show that much of our time this weekend was spent doing yardwork in preparation for the anticipated long winter.

Here we are propped up on a leaf pile. It was dusk and the flash didn't quite make it to us, so it looks a bit dark.
Even though this shot was taken seconds later, since the camera was closer, the flash lights us up much better in this shot. Our friend and neighbor Jeff King did the photography.