New York / Vision East Expo Day 2

Phew, we made it!

That was our immediate thought on arriving in New York, but now the sun is rising on our first day and we have something which is a little strange to us all, some free time!  What to do?  There were many different options.  Should we just have a fun day seeing the sights and soaking up the atmosphere of The Big Apple (of course this would really be work as a staff bonding exercise and a review of the levels of service provided by various outlets which we may visit - honest).  Perhaps we should try to see our suppliers early or even we could visit other optometry and optical offices in the city and do a little covert research.

In the end a compromise was reached, we'd do some sightseeing in the morning and in the afternoon Dr McGinty and Dr Wilson would go to a continuing education symposium.

Times Square

So we headed out from the Yotel to Times Square, looking to find a suitable establishment for breakfast.  This time of the morning is always a great time in any of the global hubs.  The city feels not quite awake, like it's slowly sipping a coffee and gently opening its eyes.

A great time to see the workers hurrying to get to their place of work, to see shops and offices sleepily opening up, cabs crawling around hopefully looking for fares which are thin on the ground.

You also get to see things without being surrounded by crowds of tourists, it's like a private moment with the city.  We got to Times Square at around 7.30am and although it was cold and grey, the lights of the advertising boards were blazing, crying out their messages to an empty audience.  We stop for just a moment to take it all in, it's all very surreal as it feels like we've really stolen a moment from time - we are starting to hear the news reports from home - school and business closures ahead of the storm, weather warnings as the storm starts to move through the province.

With breakfast taken care of in a friendly diner, we decided that the best way to tackle the sightseeing would be an open-top bus tour.  This would allow us to get a real overview of the city in the few hours that we had.  We choose our company, bought our tickets and when the bus arrived found our way to the top.

Looking down 7th Ave

With a slightly raised view and a great tour guide on the bus, although we felt like tourists, it was great to hear the stories and take in the scenes.

It's not our first time in New York, all of us have visited before, but it's a fun way to spend some time with friends who are also colleagues, in an environment which is not our normal one.

Despite the chill weather we also know that we are not suffering anything like the storm that is now landing on Nova Scotia.  There are definite wind blowing here, but as we speak to family and to Mike, who is holding fort at Ocean, we realise how lucky we are to have made the decision to get away ahead of the storm.  What a winter it's been and we really have escaped what seems to have been the really big storm of the season.  So help you understand just how we are empathising, here's a few more photos from New York!

Empire State Building

This is the new World Trade Center.  The tower on the left with the spire is actually the tallest tower in the Western Hemisphere, although the angle of the photo doesn't show it.  We loved the mix with the old church in the foreground and these utterly modern buildings behind.  Don't be fooled by the blue sky, it was all terribly hard work and we were suffering for you to get these photographs as it was bitterly cold.  Honest.

We wrap up the end of the tour with a walk from the Rockefeller Center to Central Park, down 5th Avenue.  So many iconic names and buildings just filling us to the brim with New York buzz.  It's time for our party to split up, though.  Our Docs, John & Euan were going to go to the international contact lens symposium - a world's first; and Erin was going to enjoy some fine artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The afternoon's continuing education was a great opportunity just to make sure we are completely up to speed with current trends and thinking in the contact lens world.  There is always additional knowledge and development to be gained in optometry and this gift day provided an unexpected opportunity for Euan and John to do just that.  The room was well set with some high-brow lecturers and they both enjoyed the various topics covered, especially the final panel debate between three speakers covering the different options for lens modalities (daily V's two-weekly V's monthly lens disposal).

In particular our Docs were really pleased to hear Nick Rumney give an overview of current contact lenses as Nick was a tutor of Euan's at Cardiff University.  It was also great to listen to what Dr Justin Bazan from Brooklyn had to share with the symposium on social media and its use within the modern optometry office and in particular in relation to contact lenses.

Erin, in the meantime, headed for a walk further up Central Park to the Met.  This is not her first visit to the Met, but it provides a rare opportunity for Erin to really soak up the atmosphere of the museum at her own pace.  There are so many wonderful exhibits spanning a massive timeline throughout history it is hardly surprising that this is the largest collection of art in the United States.  We'll add some photos when we have selected just the right ones, after all it's not like we have almost seven hundred to sift through to find just the right ones!

In the evening the group of friends re-convened to share their experiences, swap stories and tell tales.  All in all it has been a wonderful day, a real gift given to us.  Nova Scotia ended up being battered by blizzards, sure enough, so we made the right decision to get away early.

That evening we had a wonderful Indian meal.

New York / Vision East Expo Days 1

What a week!

Late March, our flights are all scheduled, we've re-jigged our diary and all prepared to take head down to New York on the first flight on Thursday morning to get us to our first workshop for 10 am.  Taking the days out of Ocean's diary is a big commitment for both Dr. McGinty and Dr. Wilson, however Euan & John feel that to offer both the best services and most wonderful products our commitment to seeking these out has to be there.

This exhibition we were being joined by our optician, Erin, her first visit to any of the international expo's - we knew it was going to WOW her.

Halifax airport the day before the storm!

Then ... the weather throws us a curve ball.  On Sunday forecasts started to come in about one last winter storm on yet another Wednesday.  Knowing how the previous Wednesday storms of 2014 had affected flights and transport we had to make a decision, take a chance on the Thursday morning flights or re-arrange everything last minute.  Gulp!  We took the latter, but it's hard to believe as we sat at the airport taking in the scene that a storm was really going to arrive.

Both docs arrived in to the office on Tuesday morning, and met with Mike and Erin.  Mike had kindly volounteered to hold the fort at Ocean while we were away as he'd done NYC last year.  This is no mean feat, as when we are busy and everyone rocks up at once you have to be quite the juggler to cope, but we know Mike is more than capable.

We see our eye exams that were already scheduled in and at 11 am head to the airport for our new flights.  Everything was smooth, we flew down to Philly and then on to New York:

Stopover in Philadelphia

Jump in our car and head in to the city for our hastily re-arranged reservation at the Yotel (more about it later  - but lets just say, it's hip and purple!).

So, having rolled the dice and decided to get ahead of the storm, we were safely in New York.  We kept our eyes on the various news feeds to see what was happening back home in NS with the impending storm.  All settled in we headed out for dinner, so many choices in NYC, where to go - a quick stroll found us an incredible steak house and we knew the trip was off to a fantastic start!

Stay tuned!

Green with envy?

Green with envy?

With spring just around the corner what better way to celebrate than wearing a frame which shines with the hue of the season....green. I know what your thinking...sure...yeah...ok green looks great on other people - but not on me. Are you sure?  Have you tried the many different shades and textures of green? Green can be bold and exciting or soft and subtle.

Think of mother nature's palette and you will realize that there is, indeed, a green out there for everyone - and we are here to help you find it.

Drift Eyewear Atticus

Is it possible to be soft and bold at the same time? The 'Atticus' by Drift certainly is. A warm green matte front is balanced perfectly with smooth, sleek temples handcrafted from the deck of a 70's racing yacht.

A frame with a story where you could be the next chapter. Where will it take you?

TD Tom Davies Bespoke

Choices, choices so many choices!  With TD Tom Davies you become the designer. Take your new found love of green to a whole new level and create your own masterpiece.

Change the size, colour and finish of your favourite style. Then - put your name on it (or handle, or mantra) and call it your own.

Bellinger Turbulens

Danish designed Bellinger screams sleek, sexy and sophisticated. Vibrant, bright colours such as this uber shocking lime green transform your glasses from an accessory to a statement.

Yet -the easy to wear style compliments the bright colours and makes for a perfectly balanced piece of eyewear.

Oliver Goldsmith Lord

Green isn't just for the frame. Why not try green lenses in your sunglasses to create a unique and fashionable look? While still dark enough to provide great sun coverage they take your style to a whole new level. 

This combination looks especially striking against tortoiseshell frames such as this Oliver Goldsmith beauty.

Claire Goldsmith Hollander

Retro meets modern, jade meets crystal in this stunning combination by Claire Goldsmith.

Sharp angles coupled with non-descript temples create a unique and wonderful style. Reminiscent of the fashion icons of the 50's and 60's this frame will turn heads and spark conversations.

gӧtti Winny

Sharp design made with ultra-light titanium this frame by gӧtti has solid style while feeling virtually weightless.

Classically beautiful this timeless piece will elicit rave reviews for years to come.

SALT. Clark

California style & California cool - does it get any better than this? SALT. optics are superbly well made frames with a style that is perfectly on-trend.

With SALT. green is never just green - its 'olive gradient' or 'tweed moss' and it's stunning.

UV protection and You!

We are all much better now at using sunscreen to protect ourselves from the damage that can happen through UV rays.  Can the same be said about protecting our eyes?

The harmful effects of ultra-violet radiation on the eyes has now been well documented, however, what many do not appreciate is how important it is to protect children's eyes.  Children spend more time playing outside, their pupils are larger allowing for more light (including non-visible light) to enter the eyes.  Research has also shown that a significant amount of our total lifetime UV exposure now happens by the age of 18 and we know that the damage adds up over time.

So how can we protect our eyes?

UV protection -definitely cool

There's obvious steps which can be taken, common with general sun protection, like wearing a wide brimmed hat.  We can not, however, put sun cream in our eyes, so how do we ensure that they are fully protected?

Sunglasses

The most obvious choice would be to use sunglasses, as long as they have UV protection.  You can look for certain marks like UVX or UV400 to ensure that the sunglasses will do the job properly.  Without proper UV protection, sunglasses could actually make sun damage worse as the pupils will dilate behind the dark lenses allowing more UV to enter they eye than without.

Sunglasses should be well fitting and thankfully current trends of either wrapped style or over-sized sunglasses definitely help to max out the protection and reduce peripheral light from entering the eyes.

Prescription Glasses

It may not be obvious that your prescription glasses can actually help to reduce the amount of UV light getting to the eyes.  Higher index plastic lens materials have inherent in-built UV protection as part of their optical characteristics and even standard plastic (1.5 index) can have a UV blocking treatment applied to it. 

With added benefits of being robust and durable, it is easily argued that 1.6 index plastic should now be our standard lens material of choice.  It is thinner and lighter than standard plastic, safer for the eyes with the UV protection and particularly beneficial in children's glasses as it is incredibly tough.

While prescription glasses wouldn't replace good sunglasses for overall sun protection, it is worthwhile taking the time to discuss your requirements with your optician to make sure that you are making the best choice overall.

Contact Lenses

We are increasingly finding contact lenses coming with built in UV protection and it is a feature of the lenses manufactured by Acuvue that all of their lenses have a UV blocker.  The big advantage of contact lenses in UV protection is in reducing peripheral light which gets in to the eye from oblique angles, light coming from the sides, above or below.  This Peripheral Light Factor can cause real problems for glasses and sunglasses as the light can "creep" around the edges of the glasses or be reflected from the skin and then from the back surface of the lens.

Acuvue lenses with UV protection as standard

While contact lenses will not protect the whole eye, as they only cover the cornea in the center, they will add a level of protection which is a great supplement to good quality sunglasses.  They will also allow you to choose from non-prescription sunglasses, perhaps opening up options in style, selection and having multiple pairs to suit your mood or the environment.

Whatever you are doing, whatever time of year, when you are going outside make sure that you have the best protection available and if you are unsure of what works for you, speak to your optician or optometrist for the best advice.

Cool places for cool kids?

As a new(ish) business we're keen to make sure that we are progressing and growing. One thing that is incredibly important for any optometry business is to ensure that they have a loyal patient base who like to come for their eye examinations. The reasons for this are relatively obvious, it is the solid foundation on which a business can be built, giving repeat business and a collection of advocates for your businesses and services (assuming you do a good job).

One of the hardest things to do when getting going is to create your "own" patients, people may already have a place that they go to for their eye examinations. Perhaps they have gone to their family eye doctor, which they have gone to for years; maybe they shop around from place to place with no real loyalty to any particular optometrist, seeking convenience when necessary.

To this end, as a new optometry clinic, we need to make sure that we are promoting our availability, the skill and dedication of our optometrists (Dr John Wilson and Dr Euan McGinty) and the range of services we offer.

You can perhaps imagine our disappointment, then, when we heard a friend of a friend asked, "but they don't see children, do they?". Errh ... YES!!

It would appear that the confusion came about because of the chic, cool, trendy, cutting edge, funky design of our office (enough superlatives, I think).  Apparently, though, it didn't come across as being child-friendly.

Child friendly space - read on ...

Both John and Euan are dads and know how important it is that children have regular eye examinations.  So much of children's learning is done visually that it good eyesight is integral to good quality childhood development.

Paediatric optometry is of particular interest Euan and as he's our resident uber-geek who does our website, it was one of the reasons that very early on we had a page dedicated to children's eye examinations: http://www.oceanoptometry.ca/index.php/children-s-eye-examinations.

Sometimes people are surprised when we positively advocate for regular eye examinations from a very young age, as young as six months old.  It is crucially important to assess the vision early and regularly to ensure that if any intervention is required then it can be done at the correct time and followed up accurately.  There is no doubt that we all want the best for our children, at this is true of Ocean Optometry as well.

When it comes to glasses for children, we also wish to excel at that as well.   We didn't want to just have adult glasses which have been made smaller, we wanted exceptional eyewear for our exceptional children.  As with all our collections it was important for us to research the ranges available and to select something which we felt best met the criteria.

There is no doubt that ic-berlin has really created something truly special when it comes to children's eyewear.  Their collection is designed by children and their designers to create a complete product by children, for children.  In their own words:

"For children, there are 15 models at ic! berlin. There are eyewear designs by children for children, but also crackers designed by our designers. ic! berlin glasses are lightweight, strong and beautiful. Children should have something like this.

Anyone who has children knows they can be very challenging and very very accurate ..

This challenge we glady accept. The cooperation with them makes us much fun and the kids are "stolz wie Bolle" (Berlin speak for proud). We have children badges for all of our glasses."


As we find more ranges which meet our demanding criteria we will be further expanding the selection of children's eyewear available.


A couple of final thoughts come to mind.

Firstly, why shouldn't children choose an optometry office which is cool and trendy in their outlook?  Soon enough these children will be the cool and trendy ones, as parents we will no longer be hip or groovy, we won't get their music, their fashion sense ... their friends.  As parents, though, we will always be there for them!

Secondly, having a cool and trendy optometry office with a polished concrete floor is great for children - it's incredibly easy to wipe clean and is fantastic for remote control cars!

So ... yes ... bring in your children and your families, we'd love to see them!

Ocean Optometry is definitely a cool place for cool kids of all ages!