Dre Armeda

and I love tacos

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No More Four Eyes. PRK to the Rescue!

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Dre Armeda 4 Eyes PRK

At 4 years old I was prescribed my first set of glasses. Here I am 36 years later, and I may finally be out of them. I turned to PRK (Photorefractive Keratectomy) in hopes of finding freedom!

In 200,1 I underwent LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) surgery to correct a pretty severe case of astigmatism and near sightlessness. At the time, it wasn’t enough to free me of the frames and lenses I had learned to live with. The problem was I averaged about 20/1300 vision and the doctor was very clear that it was unlikely that he could correct my vision to 20/20. He told me he could get me close, but I would still need glasses. He was correct. I normalized at around 20/60 after about 18 months and have stayed stable for the past 15+ years.

Enough was enough though. I am active on the Jiu Jitsu mats, I love to hit the trails in my Jeep, and I spend a fair amount of time on my motorcycle. These are all activities that kinda suck if you wear glasses, or if you don’t have clear vision without corrective lenses. For those wondering why contacts weren’t an option, well, it’s because of astigmatism. Astigmatism and contacts don’t play nicely. I tried time and time again and just couldn’t get the vision crisp like I hoped.

I went in to see my eye doc a couple months ago and he recommended that I go get a consultation for LASIK. Even though I’d had the procedure once, technology had advanced he noted, and I may be eligible to do it again. It wasn’t the case, however. Because of the way the procedure was done back in the day, there was too much risk in creating an incision in the top layers of my cornea again. They instead recommended PRK which has similar results, just approached a little differently, so I wouldn’t have to worry about creating the flap necessary with LASIK.

To keep an already long post shorter, I’ll skip the back and forth with making the decision. I decided to do it, and last week I underwent PRK laser surgery on both eyes. The purpose of this post is to provide a general understanding of the procedure and to offer a recap of my experiences through the first week of recovery. If you’ve ever thought of getting corrective eye surgery and PRK is an option, I hope this post helps you better understand what the recovery might look like. [Read more…] about No More Four Eyes. PRK to the Rescue!

Public Safety Should Be Top Priority!

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I am very disappointed with the state of emergency services in City of Menifee.

When someone calls 9-1-1 frantically because they think someone is breaking into their home, it is not acceptable for the emergency operator to reply, and I paraphrase, “Sorry, we don’t have any officers available, they are out on higher priority calls, we will have an officer call you back when they are available”.

Yes, this is what dispatch told my mother this morning when this scenario presented itself to her. Fortunately, she was able to make a call to family to come check on her this time, and everything was OK. What happens next time, when that family member is not available?

After the fact, officers told us that on the mid-watch, Menifee has 3 officers on duty at any given time. That’s 3 officers for a city of over 88,000 people, in fabulous Riverside County no less.

Another interesting note, it was mentioned by a city official that although the total number of police officers we should have in Menifee is somewhere in the 80’s, we are staffed somewhere in the 30’s. Think about that, that’s a scary number if accurate.

We are a growing city, the state wants more of our profits every day, but something’s not right here. We’re either not properly forecasting and growing our emergency services adequately, or, we’re recklessly slashing them due to budget cuts. Either way, this should be a priority, and a critical safety concern for our city.

Our current state of response when it comes to public safety is unacceptable! At this rate, we’re waiting on a catastrophic incident to occur for us to really dig deep and take this matter seriously!

A young and growing city, are we making poor decisions at the cost of our community?

We need change!

Another Round of Passing the Blame

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Hi, I’m that quiet guy that everyone ignores. Times have changed, I can no longer get guns or ammo, my country felt that guns were the root cause for so many unwarranted and useless deaths. Well, in part maybe.

Funny thing is, as I have quietly been ignored, I read, and I mean I read a lot! I learned how to make pipe bombs and other powerful explosives from every day items I can get at Lowes, or Home Depot, or Insert your favorite hardware store here.

Yah, that’s it. I’ll just blow up a school, or train station, or whatever is in my way when something triggers my psychopathic tendencies. Ya, guns are too slow anyway, not impactful enough.

No, this is not a pro gun rant, but if you really think guns are the issue here, you’re not thinking deep enough. The reality is when it’s not guns anymore, it will be something else, and then something else.

We love to push blame. We love to put bandaids on the compound fractures of life. Sorry to tell you folks, this is way more complicated than picking your next scapegoat.

In the end, we need to do a better job of understanding the risk anyone poses to OUR society. Why was this guy able to snap and cause the misery he caused today? There were no signs he was a wack job? I call bullshit! What did I, you, we do wrong to allow this?

We need to be held accountable as a people, I don’t think we’re doing the best we can, not even close. It’s a sad day for the loved ones of 18 children, our world, and the human race because we love to push blame.

This is the world our children and children’s children will live in. We are failing indeed!

My Talking Taco

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So I woke up to two of my favorite things. Breakfast in bed with a plate full of bacon was first, and then all my girls hand me this:

If that’s an indicator, today is gonna be rad!