Now that winter is nearly upon us here in Seattle, the overnight lows have been hitting well below freezing. The worst part is while walking, or waiting for the bus, I could feel the ground sucking all my body heat through the soles of my feet.

I started shopping for thermal insoles (hard to find, apparently) and came across a few patent and trademark disputes that discussed the composition of these thermal insoles. They consist of roughly 3 layers, a bottom layer (presumably made of rubber) for keeping the insoles in place, a middle layer that acts as a heat shield, and a top layer that acts as an insulator and padding for your feet.

Here’s the secret: The “heat shield” layer is basically a sheet of aluminum foil.

Naturally, after reading that, I decided i could make it myself. I picked up some new Memory Foam™ insoles (for insulation) and stuck a sheet of aluminum foil in my shoes before sticking the new insoles.

Does it work? Let me just say that before I did this, the sidewalks were covered in ice, and after making my tin foil shoes, there’s water everywhere. Coincidence?

A couple years ago I ordered new pair of glasses with a relatively expensive option, the anti reflective coating. Sadly, when my glasses came in, they didn’t have the coating. I was seeing light reflections all over the place, so I brought them back and had them re-order my lenses, and once I got what I ordered and paid (too much) for, I was fine.

Fast forward a few months, and I’m already getting bothered by “scratches” on my lenses, but they weren’t terrible, so I lived with them.

Fast forward a year or so, and I’ve managed to scuff up the front of my lenses, the right lens more so than the left, but both inconveniently placed directly in front of my eyes.

I tried to polish it out but with no luck, so I looked online to see if “lens polishing” was a service normally offered. Considering these retail places exist to sell new lenses, I eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn’t something they would do. However, my search yielded an unexpected result: How to Fix Scratched Glasses with Minimal Effort. To sum up, he used a glass etching cream to remove the anti-reflective coating, which is where most light scratches sit. Score!

Reading through other threads about anti-reflective coating revealed that the “scratches” I first encountered were actually issues with the coating itself. Fail! You can see most of the scratches on my lenses were from the coating flaking out, with the exception of the massive abrasion.

Nicole has a huge bottle of the same glass etching cream, so as soon as I could, I tried it out. I applied it on a small corner near the frame and it came out fine, so I coated both lenses, one side at a time for 5 minutes each side.

…and voila!

It worked rather well and though I no longer have that anti-reflective coating, my lenses are practically as good as new.

A word of warning: do NOT try the glass etching cream on actual GLASS lenses. It will etch your lenses into a cloudy frosty mess. This “cream” is actually a hydrofluoric acid, so treat with caution. Also, if you do this, you do so at your own risk.

I thought the hardest part of all of this was pulling the lens out, but putting the one I removed BACK turned out to be even more difficult. After the ordeal of removing the first one, I decided against removing the second. I suggest trying the cream against a part of your frames to see if they’ll cause any damage. Of course, plastic frames may be okay, but test anyway.

My thumbs are hurting like I’ve been playing Contra all day. And yes, there was blood. And teeth.