| Editorial October 2003
Vision Perfected
Several years back, I watched a television special on drag
racing. The show profiled a driver and team owner over a period of months, highlighting
the man’s ups, downs, and his steady desire to perform better, week after week. Much
of the story examined the actual car and the lengths taken to make it faster, and a key
factor in this is making the vehicle as light as possible. To do this, high-tech materials
are used (e.g., aluminum is lighter than steel, so it is a more desirable material), and
every design detail is sweated over. Even the accelerator and brake pedals are designed to
be lighter: by drilling holes in the pedals, essentially making them perforated, the mass
of the pedal can be reduced dramatically over a solid surface. The problem with all this
was that the car still did not perform up to snuff.
After cutting the car down, ounce by ounce, there was
nowhere left to cut. One obvious problem, however, had gone unnoticed: the driver weighed
more than 300 pounds. I don’t remember whether he finally realized this himself or it
was suggested by a team member, but when it was proposed that the driver lose weight in
order to reduce his car’s overall "race weight," it was as if a light bulb
had lit up over his head. Here his team was going to great lengths to remove mere ounces
from the car, when the driver himself could afford to shed 75 pounds or more.
I was reminded of this story as I was preparing to have
LASIK surgery last month and writing the September editorial on
the subject. Here I was, a home-theater fanatic, about to make an improvement in my
viewing pleasure likely greater than that provided by moving to a high-definition monitor
-- and, as a bonus, it was going to be less expensive than the big plasma display I wanted
to buy.
I joked about LASIK being a home-theater tweak, but I knew
full well that eye surgery is serious business. After having the surgery -- and attaining
solid 20/15 vision -- I’m happy to report that I’m fully satisfied with the
procedure and the results. I’m not here to sell you on LASIK or any other type of
body-altering surgery, but if you’re interested, I advocate lots of research and
discussion with highly recommended doctors in your area. There’s a lot of outdated
information out there, as well as some misinformation that should be debunked by
anyone considering having LASIK surgery.
Only five hours after the procedure, I was watching a movie
on my home theater without glasses. No amount of display-device calibration and adjustment
of ambient light could have equaled the improvement I experienced -- and the best thing
about it was that the fun didn’t stop when the end credits rolled. I’m thankful
the LASIK technology is available and that I was able to have the procedure. Now if I
could only have those golden ears installed . . .
...Jeff Fritz
editor@hometheatersound.com |
