This was the cool part, the optimap machine. You stick your eye into a hole in a very expensive looking machine. In the darkness is a green dot with a red circle surrounding it. It is very small and you have to adjust yourself to see it. When you are aligned correctly, the optician snaps a picture of your retina. I noticed that the machine had a Compaq PC and CD Burner in it. So I.HAD.TO.GET.COPIES.

There was eyeball pressure test. In this test, you chuck your head into a device that blasts a puff of air on to your eye. Somehow this measures the pressure in your eye. The poofed each eyeball three times to get a good reading. I got pretty twitchy after the first puff. It's like waiting for someone to poke their finger in your eye. Results: Normal
 

There was the depth perception test. For this test, they put a pair of glasses on you and hand you a little tablet. On the tablet are little 3D pictures. You tell the optometrist which one is sticking out. I got all of them right, some were guesses. Results: Normal
 

There was the peripheral vision test. In this one, you peer into a CRT with a hood over it. The optometrist makes little wavy lines appear somewhere in your field of vision. When you see the wavy lines, you are supposed to click a little handheld button. Results: The optometrist seemed surprised that I caught all of them. Yay for me!
 

In another test, you chuck your head into another holder and the optometrist takes measurements of your eyeball. Sphericity, distance between the pupils, iris diameters and stuff like that. Not to invasive, just a light pointing into your pupils.
 

There is the variable lens test. This is that weird binocular looking doohickey on the swing-arm in the eye doctor's exam room. Once again, you chuck your head into a holder. Here, the doctor varies the optical characteristics of the lenses as you are looking through them. Asking at each pair of settings; "Which is better, one or two?" You go through this for awhile until your eyes seem just right. This is how the doc determines your prescription, the device is calibrated and he reads the numbers off the knobs.
 

Then there was the dilation and bright light in your eyeball test. Here, the doctor is looking around the inside of your eyeball for defects or signs of problems. This is the one that truly sucks because the dilation lasted a few hours during which I was totally useless.
 

While the doctor is "waiting for your eyes to dilate", he says go pick out some frames... yah right. I was useless in less than a minute after the drops were administered. I could not see doodly. The doc was even surprised, he called the optometrist in to look. She said; "WOW DILATED! I've never seen that happen so far, so fast."
 

Anyway, I now have glasses and I am so happy I can read again!