Casey Eye Institute

I visited the Casey Eye Institute yesterday near the waterfront in downtown Portland on the 11th floor. I love looking out the windows to see the full panorama of Portland with the beautiful KOIN tower, the Willamette River snaking through the landscape, the boats, the highways with tiny cars, the bridges, the apartment buildings, homes, and businesses nestled in all the spots to fill up the landscape. Portland is a beautiful city.

I enjoyed the elevator rides. The female voice on the elevator is very pleasant announcing each floor and I enjoyed her company. On my final ride out the building, I commented to the woman next to me about her pleasant voice. She said, “Yes, but it gets old when you hear it several times a day.” So I said, “Well, then they need to add a jazzy hologram.” She thought that was a great idea. So do I. People would come to the OHSU Health and Wellness Center just to ride the elevators.

I parked far away from the elevator in the parking structure on the purple level 1. I was thinking as I walked towards the elevator that the air quality was horrible and filled with exhaust. My mind then went to one of my ideas that there needs to be air purifiers in all cars, especially when you are stuck in a traffic jam in a large city on a freeway. Then I wondered why there isn’t an air purifying system on airplanes to prevent the notorious air circulation that often circulates unwanted air-born illnesses. So I thought that’s another thing that is needed at this location—an air purifying system in the parking structure.

When I was taking the visual field test, I remembered what I thought when I was first told I was going to take the test. I had imagined it much differently. I thought my head would be face down on a table held comfortably cradled in some kind of soft material overlooking a tank of water. I thought I would have to tell or signal exactly where the moving object occurred, which is different than just pressing a button when I saw a tiny light in different points of my field of vision. I guess it would be hard though to keep your eyes focused in the center with my field of vision test because there would be so many exciting things happening in the tank of water with all kinds of fish movement and other points of interest. Or it could be animated and interactive with all interaction directly fed into the computer to be evaluated. There could be Disney animation for children. Oh the possibilities.............