I was going to wait until we moved to Costa Rica to get a new prescription, since I figured it would be cheap (~$7 was the high quote so far) and unlike the US, you keep your own medical records here so getting the Rx itself would be no problem.

I’d periodically check the various sites out there to look for frames and keep abreast of prices, and everything seems to be in the $40-80 range for a typical pair for me. Since I started using Twitter in the past couple of months, I started following Ira (aka GlassyEyes) who pretty much kicked this whole thing off with a blog post in 2006. He posts about deals and such and I noticed a recent entry about getting a new pair of glasses in 2 days.

It turned out to be a company called Coastal Contacts and what caught my eye on their site were a few $6.95 frames. I’ve seen such low-priced frames before, but not from places that included the lenses. At the usual places, the price gets jacked up because of the strength of my prescription, but not here! Plus, anti-reflective coating and decently thin lenses (1.61 index( were included. The actual cost of the eyeglasses came to $6.95, plus $0.48 for handling. I found a free shipping code online, so the total I paid for my new glasses was $7.43!

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. I figured if they sucked I could get lenses here (which have been quoted at ~$40 here – I’d much rather buy online). I can’t say for sure how long the shipping took – they were ordered on April 27 and seem to have arrived at my courier service in the US on May 6 (I didn’t go for the 2 day shipping). When I finally got my glasses, everything exceeded my expectations.

Here’s the unboxing. The case is some rubbery material that reminds me of the exterior of an IBM laptop. It’s much better than what Zenni gave (I’d give extra points if the next case was covered in naugahyde). The two extras at the top were thoughtful touches – a keychain adjustment/screwdriver tool and a cleaning cloth that fits in a wallet. The ‘Thank you’ inside the box was nice as well. Also included is a 20% coupon for a first-time buyer (that’s going to be Trish).

I guess ‘Clearly Contacts’ is/was another name for the company. The glasses themselves came in a soft sheath, presumably to protect them during shipping. That’s another nice touch, especially since I learned years ago that UPS drivers like to play football with their packages whenever given a chance.

Here are the glasses themselves. I opted for something with pads this time to lessen the slipping down the nose my old acetate frames would do all the time. These glasses slip less but I can also make them fit a little better if needed.

I also think these frames are a steal for $6.95, even without the lenses. The front part is metal and the arms are plastic, plus they have spring hinges. The quality of the overall frame is a step up from my last pair.

Now can you guess what brand they are? They’re not any name brand – they’re ‘Ltede,’ according to my receipt. I refuse to pay extra to get a logo on a pair of frames. Frames are the biggest point of mark-up in eyeglass pricing, and spending $100+ for a frame completely defeats the purpose of buying eyeglasses online.

Like any eyeglass prescription, it takes a couple of days to get used to. Just like the last time, things seemed oddly curved around the edges, likely due to the difference in lens size. I got a mild headache staring at my computer screen in mediocre lighting the first night, but that’s to be expected. The prescription itself is excellent – maybe better than my old pair. Everything – and I mean everything, near, far, what have you – is sharp & clear. Maybe my prescription hasn’t changed or maybe Coastal Contacts nailed it, but I love the clarity I’m experiencing with these.

This pair also fits really, really well. The other pair was a bit big and the arms bowed out way too much. This pair is just what Goldilocks ordered. Just-right width, not too large lens area. And the shiny front matches my head.

I’m totally sold on Coastal Contacts as I don’t see how the price to quality can be beaten by anyone. I’m going to order another pair or two, or maybe three or four. I’ll see if Ira mentions any deals on his blog or Twitter (there are a couple of coupon codes right now).

One last thing: Coastal Contacts seems to be run by humans (they can be reached by phone) and they care about customer service. They contacted me on Twitter, thanked me for the order and followed up to see how I liked the glasses. They are on the right track and their competitors should pay close attention.

I don’t have anything negative to say about the experience at all. Great, price, great fit, great quality and actual customer service. I think Coastal Contacts will dig the review (Hey Coastal – any chance of a thank you in the form of a pair of sunglasses? )

Pandora is described as a music discovery service based on the Music Genome Project, where peeps try classifying songs based on their qualities.  It’s like Amazon’s recommendation action with a brain – instead of making a recommendation based on consumption patterns, it makes a recommendation based on shared musical aspects.  Like a slow moving bassline, rap influences and use of violin.

This is how it works – you create an account, and then you can create stations.  Stations start with an artist or a song (though they will not play the exact song immediately – apparently requests are a no-no).  These are called seeds.  Whenever a song is played, you can just listen to it, give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.  The more thumbs you give, the more personalized the station gets. That’s all there is to it.  If you give an artist 2 thumbs down on a station, they’re banned.  If you don’t want to ban someone, you can temporarily ban a song for a month.  I love this stuff – new music is engaging me and I’m bookmarking cool songs & artists (with convenient links to Amazon & iTunes so the Pandora peeps can make some $).

My favorite station right now is one I made consisting of dub and 80s-ish hip hop.  I started the station with DJ Vadim, added King Tubby, then Rae & Christian (based on some tracks they played that I liked), Horace Andy, Mad Professor and Gotan Project (not sure about whether I dig the last one’s influence in the station).  I’ve also added stations for rockabilly/psychobilly, irish folk & idm/chillout with good results.  Actually, I was surprised with how good the rock & folk stations turned out to be, and found some good new (to me) music to boot (though I was unimpressed that I couldn’t add Pete Seeger to give my folk station more flavor).

Pandora worked with Christmas music too – I started off with a swingin’ Christmas station, gave a thumbs down to modern crapmeisters like Harry Connick Jr & Diana Krall in favor of Ella, Louie, Sinatra and the like, and added Elvis and VOILA.  Instant Arp Christmas music.

Now this is all web-based, so it’s great for work or if you have some nice speakers hooked up to the home ‘puter.  They have started offering it on mobile phones too, which is pretty cool.  Overall, I totally recommend checking & trying it out.  I for one have started a nice list of new music & artists to shake me out of my 10 year old musical doldrums.

Some movies have to be seen on the big screen, and this is one of them.  The 3D is way better than the old red & blue glasses, not to mention some of the mediocre attempts from the 80s that I just had to see as a kid.  That would include the obvious one – Jaws 3D – as well as the lesser known Molly Ringwold classic, Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn.  (at least I think she was in it…)

The story is better than expected – instead of updating the book or classic movie, the movie involves the book as part of the plot.  Was it a work of fiction, written by the creator of the scienti-fiction genre?  Or was it real?  Regardless, it’s not a deep story with tremendous acting – it’s aimed squarely at peeps who want to see cool stuff and take a joy ride.

The 3D effects are, overall, quite good.  The last 3D movie I saw was an IMAX shark documentary that was mediocre, but here the 3D is pretty constant and well done.  It’s worth the effort to see it in 3D – I actually jumped in my seat a couple of times, which hasn’t happened in a theatre since I was 17 (the creepy spinal meningitis chick running at the camera in Pet Sematary caused that).

If you’re not a discerning movie watcher (which I’m decidedly not these days – I like stuff that either makes me laugh or involves lots of things blowing up),  then I’d recommend watching this with the kids.  It’s fun, exciting and the 3D effects are finally something worth seeing.

Of the many reasons for unschooling, two are prominent in my mind: 1) to cultivate a love for learning and 2) stay out of the way so my kids can find and follow their interests.  The question is really how – if I’m respecting the kids enough to make their own decisions, how do I, as a parent, matter?  I’m firmly on the side of unschooling – but not unparenting.  Regardless of how much freedom my children have, it’s still up to me & Trish to guide them, directly or indirectly.  It’s the how that’s tricky and probably freaks out a lot of people.  (Ignorance is bliss – it’s easier for many to just send their kids to school and save themselves the trouble.)

I’m always reading for knowledge & inspiration (plus the occasional escape too).  Most of my non-fiction reading is oriented towards creating the life I want – work from home, move abroad, bust out of the rat race, etc.  I’ve recently found a book that’s directly related to unschooling and offers some insight and advice on cultivating the mindset I really hope my kids will have: Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck.

I first read about the book in a NYT article last month (If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow).  The premise is simple: there are two mindsets.  The fixed mindset views abilities and talents as carved in stone, creating a need to prove yourself repeatedly.  That’s what school teaches, with constant tests and labels (positive & negative).  The growth mindset is that your qualities and abilities can be developed through effort.  If you don’t do something well, it’s an opportunity for learning and growth.  It’s really the basic belief that you can learn.  Maintaining the joy of learning is what this is all about.

That’s pretty much the whole book – after going into some details about the two mindsets, the rest of the book is filled with examples nicely illustrating the concepts in business, sports, relationships and – most importantly – in education.  Like everything else, it’s not black and white whether someone is of one mindset of the other – most people have a combination of both, differing by ability and experience.  The ‘dumb jock’ stereotype might be the perfect example – someone who has a fixed mindset in a classroom, but a growth mindset on the field.  That really makes a lot of sense to me now, with a kid playing a game for fun (without judgement) and improving vs being repeatedly judged in a classroom (or at home or elsewhere).

As soon as I started reading the book I thought about unschooling -  the growth mindset is what I am hoping to instill in my children; it is the unschooling mindset.  What’s also great is that she dovetails completely with Alfie Kohn (Punished by Rewards; Unconditional Parenting).  Praise does not motivate people to learn.  Cheap self-esteem boosts (like a Good Job for just going down a friggin’ slide) don’t either.  Kohn teaches that praise, rewards and the like don’t promote lasting change and often make things worse.  Praising a kid anytime they say Look at me for something is a constant external, qualitative judgement that slowly saps their self-satisfaction and replaces it with the need to have external approval.  Think a kid raised like that will be affected by peer pressure?

Does that mean we withhold praise?  Of course not – Dweck puts it nicely:

It just means we should keep away from a certain kind of praise – praise that judges their intelligence or talent.  Or praise that implies that we’re proud of them for their intelligence or talent rather than for the work they put in.

Dweck performed many studies that showed that rewards and positive labels (ie You’re smart) didn’t work as well as praising the effort.  Telling someone that they’re smart for doing well on a test makes them feel fine – until the next test.  And if the next test result isn’t as good, well, they’re not that smart.  It also reinforces the idea that some people have abilities that allow them to achieve effortlessly.  Praising the effort or how the result was achieved reinforces the idea that effort was the why, and that it’s how anything can be learned.  Who wouldn’t want that kind of an attitude in their children?  For many people, it would turn the words You can be anything you want to be into something more substantive than an oft-repeated platitude.

Dweck notes that praise for an achievement results in reduced effort moving forward.  I totally believe this, because once upon a time that was me.  Until third grade, when I was in a tough, progressive school, I thought I wasn’t very smart since good grades were effortless to others.  I wasn’t the one with the quick, confident answers in class either.  Smartness was desired, as everyone in my family lionized intelligence.  In 4th grade we moved and I started Catholic school.  I was a year ahead in math.  My grades sky-rocketed and so did my ego.

By freshman year, I firmly believed that some people were smart and some weren’t (total fixed mindset), and looked among my high honors (positive label) classmates to determine who was ‘really’ smart and not just there to fill out the class.  The not-so-anonymous classmate who wrote in my yearbook ‘High Honor D!ck’ was right on the money.  So was the teacher who later called me a prima donna.

I prided myself on effortless studying (fixed mindset) and after junior year, everything fell apart after I started wondering Why am I doing this? (much thanks to Dead Poets Society)  School made no sense, learning wasn’t fun, and I wasn’t motivated to even do the little studying I’d done previously.  With more challenging classes, this resulted in lowered grades but not the expectation that I should be getting good grades.  The effort required – the learning process -was totally irrelevant.  Did that mean I tried harder?  I did, in a very half-assed fashion.  I was not used to the actual work anymore.  My self-worth dropped with my grades, I plunged into depression and eked into the college I had picked primarily based on its reputation and the pedigree I’d get.  I’d rather forget the next 4 years.

Mindset has shed new light on my own experiences and how to guide my children towards fulfillment & satisfaction.  The little things we say and imply make a big difference in how our children view themselves, their abilities and learning.  Inadvertently, we can put serious limits on their growth.  I would highly recommend all unschooling parents (and educators in general) read it and consider it deeply.

Additional inspiration for this blog and most of my thinking along these lines started in February with the NYT article Eureka! It Really Takes Years of Hard Work.

Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is about long-term, unconventional world travel.  Conventional would be the notion that long-term travel is possible only by the very wealthy galavanting from exclusive resort to private island in luxury.  In reality, long-term travel is very possible for people of more normal means, but to do it in a fulfilling fashion requires a mindset of openness and focus on what’s important.  This is also what is essential to a successful life as an expat, and Potts distills it so well that every expat (and expat-to-be) should read this book.

Vagabonding – n. a privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, simplicity, awareness, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit.

This definition, from the book’s opening page, succinctly lists all the qualities that a successful expat needs.  Quite a few expats move out of their chosen destination within 2 years.  There aren’t any hard numbers, but it is likely in the range of 20-40%.  I imagine that a common thread amongst them would be a lack of flexibility and maintaining the same mindset and expectations they had in their home country.

Clocking in at 206 pages, the book is an easy, worthwhile, inspiring read.  Interspersed in the chapters are quotes from vagabonders, and each chapter ends with a profile of a path-blazing vagabond.  These pioneers include John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club), Thoreau and Walt Whitman.  It’s cool to read about them, but of more value are the quotes and comments by the less-reknowned, everyday vagabonds like ourselves.

Also included at the end of each chapter is a list helpful resources (books & websites).  A more up-to-date list of resources, vagabonding profiles, forum and Potts’ blog can be found at the companion website, www.vagabonding.net.