- Passport, check.
Lens clock, check.
Magnifying glass, check.
Lens thickness calipers, check.
Non-programmable calculator, check.
Two number two pencils, check.
PD stick, check.
(upbeat music)
Hello.
I'd like to welcome you
to the Laramy-K Optician Works Training Center,
where, today, I'm on a bit of a special project.
I moved a couple of years ago,
and the state I live in now requires an optician's license.
I'm gonna go ahead and get one.
One, it's a good idea.
I'm gonna start doing the dispensing series of videos.
I need to get ready, and I wanna just
kinda go over the process that I am doing
to make sure that I really am.
Now the paperwork that came with it
tells me that I can bring some things with me,
or actually, I have to bring some things with me,
and one of them is a lens clock.
Now I'm not just gonna take my lens clock
out of my drawer, pick it up and say, oh,
I've got my lens clock.
No, I'm gonna make sure that my lens clock
is actually working, just like all this other stuff.
Now one of the accepted methods of doing that
is using the spectacle table on the lens meter.
If I drop that on there, I should have a perfect zero,
which I do, so this is good.
I can pack this away.
I'll end up putting all of this into a Tupperware container
of some kind, probably clear so they can look into it
as I come into the building,
and my lens clock is good.
It says that I need a thickness gauge.
Lens calipers, lens thickness gauge.
And I'm not just gonna assume that this thing is right.
It's kinda chintzy.
It's not one of the more expensive, high-end ones.
So I've got these, the set of feeler gauges.
This is from working on cars,
and this particular one says it's a 0.88 millimeters thick
so I think I can use it as an accurate reference point,
and if I take my lens caliper, and I clamp it down
on there nice, straight, even,
both sides, and I look at this,
well, by golly, I have got a tiny, tiny tad over eight,
or 0.8, 8/10 of a millimeter,
so I would say that these are accurate enough, as well,
so we can set those to the side.
It says I can bring a focimeter, lens meter.
I've got this beautiful, brand new Marco LM-101,
which runs both off batteries and off of power.
I'm gonna bring both.
Now, what the LM-101 does not have is a good light
that says hey, I'm on, turn me off.
So you end up running the batteries down all the time.
So I've got myself some fresh batteries.
I'm gonna open these up, and actually take some paper,
and block off the positive side when it's under there,
so when I arrive, I can pull the paper out
and make sure that I've got power to those batteries,
which are brand new, and I'm gonna bring that power cord,
too, just in case.
Of course, I'm also gonna make sure
that I have that set for myself,
I'm gonna clean the eyepiece up a little bit there,
make sure everything's good to go.
It says I can bring a millimeter ruler,
a PD stick, if you will.
I've always loved this one.
It's nice and it's super easy to read,
very clear lines, and I do know that it's accurate.
Don't always assume that.
Measure a couple against the one that you wanna bring,
making sure that that's accurate as well.
It says I need to bring two sharpened,
number two pencils.
I'll be bringing those along as well.
It says I need to bring an ID of some kind.
I'm gonna toss my passport in that box, as well,
just in case I leave my wallet at home.
The test center is almost two and a half,
three hours away.
Now another thing about the test
is that is crazy, stupid, expensive.
So I wanna get it right the first time.
It says I may also bring a handheld magnifier,
just what I've got right here,
gotta clean that up, too.
Let's go ahead and do that while I think of it.
Yep, very good.
Oh, the other thing I did,
and I did this behind the scenes already.
I don't have to go through it all again
was to make sure with my battery tester
that these are all nice and fresh and good to go,
'cause I don't want those, that light dying on me
at the wrong time.
It says I'm allowed to have a non-programmable calculator,
which I've got here,
my old trusty one that you've seen before.
It's a solar, so it's not gonna run low on batteries
or anything on me,
and a small light source, which my magnifier
just simply happens to have.
Gonna pull all of those things together,
double check, triple check, have a list with me,
put 'em all in a container and take that stuff with me.
Now in the big picture of things, it says,
and this is in no particular order,
that basically, I'm gonna be doing verification
or neutralization verification on two pair
of mounted single vision, mounted progressives,
doing all kinds of progressive parameter measurements,
bifocal parameter measurements,
and a set of mounted bifocals.
Now how am I gonna prepare for that?
Well, I've got one of my old Learn The Lens Meter Kits.
This was something that we used to offer online
along with the video series.
Unfortunately, they were damaged and abused, stolen,
so this is kinda the last one,
and I'm gonna put it to good use.
I'm just gonna spend the rest of my week
practicing this stuff, going through,
I've got a loose single vision sphere,
a loose single vision sphere of cylinder,
I've got a pair of single vision,
fully mounted pair of bifocals,
fully mounted progressive, couple more single visions.
I've got boxes more.
And I'm just gonna spend my week
doing neutralization verification
and making sure that all my measurements are good.
Now what's beautiful is I haven't looked at this
in probably almost a year, so I can't remember
what any of these powers are, all the better.
Now, like I said, we used to have these.
We don't anymore.
If you are, if you believe that you are ready
for a practical exam of some kind,
it probably should mean that you should be able
to create a kit like this yourself,
or with the help of someone maybe a little bit
more experienced, come up with a kit that's quite similar
to this so that you can practice it, as well.
Again, kinda important, and the biggest piece being
that these exams are really expensive,
so you just wanna get it right the first time.
That is it for this week.
Thank you so much for watching.
Hope you got a little bit out of that.
If you did, please hit the like button,
please subscribe to us, leave me a message,
and as always, make absolutely certain
that every uncut lens in your life comes from Laramy-K.
I'll see you again next week.
(clearing throat)
Madam Chairman, Members of the Committee,
I'd like to read a brief prepared statement if I could.
- [Woman] We could allow that.
- Thank you.
To avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest,
I respectfully ask that viewers please refrain
from asking in what state I reside
and which specific practical examination
I'm about to take.
All inquiries, email, comments, calls, texts,
letters and posts will be answered as follows.
I can neither confirm nor deny the state
in which I reside and/or the examination
that I am about to undergo.
Thank you, Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee.