Whew! Back in business

Blogger (owned by Google) locked me out! I'm back and ready for business! Here's my Monday, September 4 blog, saved in word processing.

Morning Hymn, September 4, Magnificat, p. 55

Glory to you who safe have kept

And have refreshed me while I slept;

Grant, Lord, when I from death shall wake,

I may of endless light partake.

Lord, I renew my vows to you;

Scatter my foes as morning dew;

Guard my first springs of thought and will,

And with yourself my spirit fill.

Thomas Ken (1637-1711), the author, wrote 4 vols. of poetry, many of which have become hymns, especially the one we know as "Doxology." He liked that verse so much I found it in at least 4 of his poems! He seemed to like writing about God's care at night, and again the blessings of God in the morning. He was an Anglican bishop who wasn't afraid to challenge either church or king and got in a lot of trouble for being so outspoken, even spent some time in the tower.

 I always read a hymn in the morning and thought of my friend Sonja immediately when I saw today's selection. She was having an anxiety attack about an upcoming medical procedure.

"scatter my foes as morning dew" Let's hope Sonja's foes (worries and anxieties) just disappear with the dew this morning.

https://www.poemhunter.com/thomas-ken/biography/

https://hymnary.org/text/glory_to_thee_who_safe_hast_kept

Please explain that--Explain That Stuff

"Explain that Stuff is an online book written by British science writer Chris Woodford (author of many popular science books for adults and children, including Atoms Under the Floorboards: The Surprising Science Hidden in Your Home). It includes 450 easy-to-understand articles (plus around 2000 photos and 800 illustrations), covering how things work, cutting-edge science, cool gadgets, and computers."

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/

Also has a Facebook site.

Sticky keys on laptop, walking the lakefront, and Father's Day

Here at Lakeside I'm using both my I-pad and my laptop, and occasionally some keys stick on the laptop.  Today I couldn't use the T or the Y so I switched to the I-pad and stated a substitution, but as soon as I did that, they started to work.

I walked 2 miles this morning, choosing the most level street (3rd) but also walked back on the lakefront, but did have to walk about half a block with an incline.  At one time the lake was much bigger, like maybe 8 thousand years ago (have you been warned enough about climate change), so the lakefront used to be much further south of here, with a gradual slope.  Even so, it was worth the extra effort.  The lakefront flowers were gorgeous, and it was much warmer than last night's prediction.

We'll celebrate Father's Day by eating breakfast at the Patio Restaurant after the Dockside church service.  Tomorrow my husband returns to Columbus for a church meeting, his guitar lesson and a doctor's appointment, so he'll have his Father's day dinner with our daughter and husband then.  He doesn't know it, but she's found the 2016 Maise Dobbs novel, and that will be one of his gifts.  Don't tell!  He has the set, but we didn't know about the latest one.   http://www.jacquelinewinspear.com/

What computers used to cost, Dec. 2007

Today I was cleaning out a drawer (something I need to do more often) and came across the receipt from Staples for the computer I’m using as I write.  A Dell Inspiron 530S loaded with VISTA. The total bill came to $895.50 with various price over rides amounting to $39, a flash drive of 4 GB (I still have it in the package and not sure I ever used it), something that looks like a 2 year warranty, taxes $53.59, a holiday cd for $6.  Can’t be sure from the codes but it looks like I also bought a monitor and paid for data transfer from the old computer (which I think is still in the basement storeroom, and occasionally has been called into service when this one failed). Photo below.

The new Inspiron seems to be about the same price ($50 less), but with Windows 10, wireless, 1TB hard drive, 8GB system memory (compared to 250 GB and 2 GB)

My 530S is clunky and slow, it’s been repaired twice, and really resisted when I updated to Windows 10 (had to use Firefox).

Laptops and sperm count in men

On someone's Face Book page I saw a photo of a lecture hall where everyone had a laptop on knees or lap. I was pretty sure I'd seen something years ago about heat killing sperm or reducing sperm count. I know my laptop can create heat even through a thick pillow on my thighs, so I looked it up. Here's what was at the bottom (no pun intended) of advice on taking a laptop to college classes.

Guys: if you put the laptop on your lap, please also be aware that the increased temperature can reduce your fertility. The effect is not so strong that you can count laptop use as a contraceptive, but it’s something to think about. You might also think about the effect of elevated temperature on spontaneous mutation rate in those little gamete vehicles you have on board.

Am I tech savvy or what?

Connectivity has been a huge problem, as I noted before. So I've set the laptop up on the porch on the "kitty condo" and I'm sitting on a low camp stool. I have a sailing book on my right knee and the mouse is on that. Things seem to be working right now. The cat has moved to the porch furniture and doesn't seem too upset with this arrangement.

This condo was purchased for our previous cat, the lynxpoint, that didn't live very long. She also never figured out what her tail was, and would race inside out through the little kitty condo chasing it.

Computer virus problems

I'm really out of commission here. I'm using an old computer xp I had in the basement. I picked up a virus disguised as a microsoft scan, so don't ever say yes to an offer to scan for viruses, even if it says it's microsoft. Don't know that I could have stopped it, but after being "cleaned" by a computer repairman, it reappeared and now the whole thing is fried.

A high tech net for volunteers

I hope everyone contributing to buy nets and t-shirts noticed the article about malaria in today's Wall St. Journal. It's about high tech epidemiology and volunteers who help with malaria vaccine modeling. The simulations could take months or years as millions die or become disabled by a disease that about 30 years ago had practically been conquered. That is until Rachel Carson told about her vision of a silent spring, and DDT as a killer of mosquitoes that spread the disease was essentially taken off the market. In its place we have bed nets and local spraying, and do-gooders buying orange t-shirts and having basketball games and bake sales to feel like they're doing something. Meanwhile, millions of children, mostly black and brown, mostly poor, mostly not using bed-nets because they aren't accessible, are dying.

So while they slice and dice the genes of the female mosquito becoming famous for writing articles in peer review journals, they can only hope for that enzyme that will cure the disease. But doesn't volunteering just feel so good? Isn't that what counts? The feeling, not the results?

Down for the count!

I've picked up a virus and have no computer until I either reload the software or get it fixed. So I'm at a friendly neighbor's alerting all 5 of my readers that there will be no e-mail or blogging until this is resolved.
DON'T send photos of the reunion until you hear from me!

It's all about me

Recently I bought two new pillows for our bedroom at the lakehouse, and brought them back here while we have guests in the house. (We only rent during the Methodist conferences.) The kitty thinks this was all done for her. She also likes my computer case, transferring her fur, one hair at a time until the case is pretty much a fur ball.

Blogging from the kitchen

Today I'm sitting in the kitchen with the laptop--the one that frequently balks and quits, and I have to reload everything. I've learned over time, to not upgrade anything on it--not virus protection, not internet settings; don't add widgets or gizmos, nothing that flashes or wiggles. No music. No streaming radio. It wants to live in its own little cocoon of 2004, or whenever I bought it. So I got this e-mail from Murray, who will be my guest blogger until I can get the office computer to work (where I keep my drafts). Murray is living in Florida right now, but Spring is coming even to Illinois, wrapped in another very cold winter, and he and the Mrs. will soon be returning home to the golf links of Sunset Golf. course.

Murray sez: President Obama has been visiting some of the major cities to sell HIS plan to help people who got in over their heads and cannot keep up with their mortgage payments. His last stop was Phoenix where he assured the crowd that he has committed 75 billion towards that goal. He states that this help is only for the people that got caught up in the housing bubble or lost their jobs and will not assist the speculators, house flippers, and the people that bought more house than they could afford. (Heh,heh,heh!) Now, I would like someone to tell me just when did the Federal Government ever fine tune any financial bailout or large expenditure and track exactly where the money went? When they release this 75 billion it's gone. Never to be seen or heard from again. Just like free money for services in the war, the 150 billion PORK package and for Katrina. Anybody know what happened to those funds? They will manage the bail out just like they did with Medicare, Social Security and the National debt. They couldn't get the Prescription drug plan, the tax code, or even the simple AMT right.

Today I watched CNBC as the majority of the analysts argued why should the people who didn't do anything wrong bail out the people that did. One of our legislators responded with "these people did nothing wrong, they just got caught in the housing bubble"! Well, that statement ticked off quite a few people and one of the analyst replied, "me and everyone around me did nothing wrong but now our 401-K's are 201-K's. Who's gonna bail us out?" Excellent point that will go unanswered!

I'm sure by now you have all heard of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. You know, they're the group that went to Ohio and rounded up anybody they could whether or not they lived in Ohio and took advantage of a weeklong period in which new voters can register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day in Ohio. You just know that they didn't round up anybody to vote Republican. Well, anyway these same shock troops will be rearing their ugly heads again. The troop hero (Obama) is dedicating millions of his PORK plan to this organization. Their next goal will be to stop people from being evicted from their homes even if it means that they will chain themselves to the front porch and refuse to be evicted. Or if evicted they will move back in. This will constitute civil disobedience. ACORN's drum beat and chant will be that they are defending these poor defenseless homeowners from the big bad banks. Columnist Michelle Malkin says "the ACORN foot soldiers, funded with your tax dollars, will scream, pound their fists, chain themselves to buildings, and engage in illegal behavior until they get what they want."

Here is a link to a video of ACORN breaking into a Baltimore house formerly owned by a woman who could no longer afford the payments after the Balloon. The bank she did business with no longer owns it and had resold it to someone else. Someone who probably had the traditional credit check and standard loan.

The lawyers will have a heyday AND your President already is aware of the tactics planned by ACORN and will see to it that they are adequately funded. This could, by itself, drag on for years.

I just looked in on the office computer. After hitting the F1 (or F2) key, after about 30 minutes a message came up about the keyboard, so I unplugged, replugged, and also rearranged the mouse just for good measure, and it seems happy now. Maybe the cat was looking for something to do last night when she wasn't sitting on my head while I was sleeping.

What happened to the women?

The modern women’s movement is dated from the late 60s or early 1970s. It sort of evolved from the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war protests, I’m told. Women got tired of sleeping with, and making coffee for the movers, shakers, and criminal element, although some like Bernadine Dohrn went on to marry one. I can remember attending “consciousness raising” groups on the OSU campus--women sitting around, usually on the floor, discussing the various ways society or more specifically men had kept them from their potential or dreams, and how things would be different if women were in charge. More collaborative. Kinder. More team work. We were so radical we didn’t even serve snacks like church ladies.

Well, we’re about 40 years down the road. I’d like you to take a look at this very interesting video about the Antikythera Mechanism. http://www.antikytheramechanism.org/

Never heard of it? Me either before today when the Nature video notice popped up in my e-mail. But, neither had some of the men in the video interview. It really is fascinating, and there are two parts. If you’re like me, you prefer to read, not watch, but watching does bring you up to speed a little faster than reading 2000 years of the history of science.



However, what I want to mention is the lack of women in this story, either ancient or post modern. You do see two women applauding one exhibit, but they could be wives or secretaries, or guests. No women are included in the story.

Not for a minute do I think women have been excluded the last 30 years--although possibly the years before. Nor will I say there aren't more women in the sciences than when I was young. Even so, more women than men were graduating from high school in my grandmother’s day, and that didn’t seem to give too many a career boost. Did we really need so much help if it comes naturally? In the last 30 years, there have been many workshops, special classes, special laws, special gendered regulations, speech codes, extra math anxiety classes for middle school girls (even when my 41 year old was in middle school), Title 9, and disinterested girls served at the expense of very interested boys. Yes, there are a few women who really take to math and science, who are willing to postpone all other gratification in order to get that A or that scholarship or that PhD, and then by-pass marriage and family so she can sit in a lab at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning, but most don’t care to.

You’ve heard the old adage, it’s not paranoia if they are really out to get you? Well, it’s not discrimination if you really can’t or won’t do the job. I had an epiphany when I was about 16 or 17. It was during Algebra II class--virtually everyone who was planning to go to college was in that class. After our freshman year we began to split into certain groups, and I knew I was in over my head. Some took home-ec, office practice and shop or ag, and some went the other way (don’t remember what it was called, but something about college). It wasn't rigid like European schools--in fact, we had little or no counseling as I recall. Someone signed your choice and you were in.

These days someone would jump to my rescue and say I had “math anxiety” and I would be assigned to a special group. I even called it that during most of my adult life. I’d make many excuses--and it was true, I surely was anxious as I saw the numbers and letters swimming and scooting around with little squiggles and making no sense whatsoever the way geometry had. Rather than sit there and watch my classmates all succeed where I would fail, I made a detour and transferred to a psychology class. I could have asked for help--we had great teachers; I suppose I could have even had tutoring, the fact remains I didn't. If it would have mattered to me, if I'd loved math, I would have. I might have been anxious, but I wasn’t stupid. I just couldn’t make any sense out of algebra and moved in another direction.

Back to the video. Did you notice the elderly man in the video, the master instrument maker of medieval instruments, the one who’s to build the replica? Wearing hearing aids. Notice his delight at the computer model. Is there a woman out there of any age who could or would do either one? Design the replica or the computer model? Even with math anxiety counseling and middle-school workshops? Asian women, you say? Well, yes, far more than the Euro-women. But I scan a lot of photos of boards, awards, and special honors--the number of women at the top in any field (other than the ones men choose not to enter) is discouraging after 40 years of special help.

Still, a book about it http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/ might be doable for book club selection.

Does Barack really send his own e-mails?

At Panera's where I buy my morning coffee there is a new desk with a computer next to the coffee and cream bar. It's for employee training, not the customers. They log-in, put on their head phones, and learn about all the latest products and procedures (nice photos). I'm sure it's a way to have all employees, particularly new ones, cover the same ground, but it also helps the long term employees catch up. We had something like this in the OSUL for training our student staff, but it was so primitive (in late 90s) I don't think my staff ever used it.

However, sitting at a computer is not too useful for senators, presidents or representatives. Better they should have to put the budget or census reports on their lap and experience the heft. In fact, government staff in general have gotten themselves in deep doo-doo sending e-mails, which causes our tax money to be used to hire battalions of lawyers on both sides to figure out what was purged, what was meant, and who sent it. Little jokes on the side when you think you're chatting with staff in on the background, sound pretty dumb when parsed by the hostile media or blogosphere.

I'm thrilled John McCain doesn't send e-mail. I'm not impressed at all that Barack Obama sent a text message (did his little pinky really press "send?") to his Gen-Next supporters to announce he's added an old guy, Joe Biden, a long time senator who with him holds down the ratings of Congress, to the ticket. Let them write long hand the way George Washington and John Adams did. If Barack writes the way he talks (multiple parenthetical and clarifying phrases per sentence), it could fill libraries of the future.

Update: Hot Air reports that this appeared in the Boston Globe and Forbes in 2000:

"McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain’s severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain’s encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He’s an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can’t raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.
After Vietnam, McCain had Ann Lawrence, a physical therapist, help him regain flexibility in his leg, which had been frozen in an extended position by a shattered knee. It was the only way he could hope to resume his career as a Navy flier, but Lawrence said the treatment, taken twice a week for six months, was excruciatingly painful.

”He endured it, he wouldn’t settle for less,” said Lawrence, who rejoiced with McCain when he passed the Navy physical. ”I have never seen such toughness and resolve.”

Another update at Hot Air points out he regularly reads his e-mail even though typing is difficult, and was chair of the Senate telecommunications committee--probably knows more than Obama. Does not having served in the military disqualify Obama from being Commander in Chief, it's asked, since sending e-mail seems to be a qualification? I'm betting they pull that ad if it's not gone already! Sort of like Joe Biden asking that guy in a wheel chair to stand up, innit?

Covert Radio

I'm having an interesting time working through David's links (Heretical Librarian), and this morning tuned into Covert Radio, via The Long War Journal link, a real relief from listening to the Cleveland corruption and Toledo's crime wave stories (I'm on Lake Erie).

"Brett Winterble joins Tim Lynch from VSSA, Bill Roggio from the Long War Journal and Amy Sun from the FAB LAB, from MIT. Brett interviews Tim Lynch from VSSA, a contractor working in Afghanistan, about the current situation there. Also on the line was Amy Sun from the FAB Lab at MIT, Amy is working on a ground breaking new project to help redevelop Afghanistan's infrastructure. Bill Roggio from Long War Journal also joins in to talk about his take on the latest reports on ISI involvement with AQ and the TalibanPlus reaction to the latest report from RAND."

I had never heard of an MIT FAB Lab (2,000 tons of equipment in the middle of nowhere), but Amy (an engineer) is certainly excited about it. I've also enjoyed reading some foreign newspapers on-line; I'd almost forgotten, if I ever knew, what non-editorialized "news" looked like. You don't have to slog your way to paragraph 11 to get to the point.

One of the Taliban pro-jihad poems distributed as a ring tone for cell phones — “Death is a gift,” on Al Emarah — included the phrase, “I will not kiss the hand of Laura Bush.” Perfect for the ALA anarchists. Seen at Covert Radio blog.

As mentioned before, my laptop isn't very stable. I haven't reloaded the software since October. I hope I've discovered the trick--I've stopped updating or adding anything that it didn't come with. This seems to interfere with some adobe documents and pod-casts, but this one comes through fine.

My new computer

Yes, today I hate computers, speaking of hate. I hated them yesterday, too. I hired a college student to connect my new computer--the one I bought in December. I need the guest room, so I had no choice. It just had to get out of the box, off the bed and on to my desk. But I hate it. I hate Vista. I hate Microsoft, I even hate Bill Gates today. It started to transfer, then would quit, so we'd start over. When I opened My Pictures, I had 4 of everything. His face went white when he saw how many people, mostly dead (nearly 4,000), were in my Family Tree Maker. Vista tries to make data pretty; give me smart any day and save the space. We were just about finished when I logged in to get my McAfee from Ohio State. Seems I've downloaded it too often, and I was given a phone number to call. Of course, I've used it too often. My @#$%^&*( laptop fails about every 2 months, and I have to reload everything. I hate computers. They have turned us all into slaves. Then I got a recording that this had happened to the OSU Communications network. I swear, it wasn't me. Wish I'd thought of it, though.

The paperless society

This morning I moved a mature IRA from one bank to another, because the first bank was charging me $30 a year just to use my money! Do you know that by the time I got home from those two transactions about a mile apart, I had 26 pieces of paper, or 27 pieces if I counted the check, 25 of them 8.5 x 11. Both banks used to be called something else--or at least one was, and the other was started by officers of a former savings and loan. I can remember the days when they rolled the certificate into a typewriter and I signed a little card for the beneficiaries which stayed there. In those days, I thought it took a long time, but now with computers it is much longer. Plus, the computers don't even update your account until the next day, so on one sheet I had to write in the new amount. But the staff are always pleasant, handsome and cheerful, so it's nice to go to a bank and enjoy the comfy furniture and have a chat. Just make sure you have plenty of time. Plus it is a beautiful, sunny day in central Ohio. My artificial flowers are doing fabulously even in the cold snap.

Thursday Thirteen--13 Things to do when Microsoft updates in the middle of your blogging, and then reboots your extremely slow computer

1) Stare at the frozen screen in disbelief as your entry disappears.
2) Warm your coffee.
3) Unload the dishwasher.
4) Load the dishwasher.
5) Gather the magazines due at the public library for later.
6) Put away the remote and close the TV cabinet doors in the living room.
7) Write a card and address it for a friend who has been ill.
8) Find a stamp because there are none in your desk.
9) Check the laundry and dryer cycle.
10) Put away the straggler Christmas cards that arrived after you'd put everything away.
11) Throw out the trash that's been accumulating on your desk.
12) Use the restroom.
13) Brush teeth.

Post Thanksgiving thoughts

It's not so bad using my laptop in the kitchen--I can get up and clean a drawer or cabinet while waiting for slow pages to load.

We ate leftovers with family last night, but first watched, and watched and watched (3 overtimes) the Arkansas and LSU game. The announcers even commented that Buckeyes were watching this game closely because if Arkansas won, OSU moved up. Yes. Goodness, such screaming and yelling from the men in the family. What if it had actually been the Buckeyes playing?

Although I didn't fix the turkey, I got the carcass. It's stewing on the stove right now, releasing yummy fragrance with a few onions.

We've finally had some frost--still many trees loaded with leaves, and my husband has gone to the lake to rake leaves at our summer home. Last pick up is next week. Most summer home owners close up on Labor Day and never look back until Memorial Day. The trees in Lakeside know this, so they send their leaves to our yard.

It must be very cold somewhere. Yesterday out of 100 hits, 16 were to my post on frozen car doors. I thought global warming might take care of that. Even so, there doesn't seem to be much agreement on how to take care of this problem.

Tomorrow we celebrate our son's birthday--we'll probably go to Bob Evan's after church. He and his band are working on a CD so he'll have to hurry back to his home on the east side. I'd show you a photo of the band, but everything is on the other computer which isn't working. So here's one of us from a year ago that I've already posted. I've given up on the daughter-in-law search, so if you come across that blog (I had his permission, btw), don't submit an application.


My Memory Patterns blog continues to chug along at about 80-100 page views a week. I wrote it for only one month--November 2005--matching up old photos with old sewing patterns. Seem to be a lot of people looking for apron patterns--you know, the decent coverage-size that actually give you some protection! I was never a really good seamstress like others in my family, but you don't notice you've given something up until 10 or 15 years have gone by and you realize you'll probably never again thread a bobbin, or walk through the fabric department, touching and dreaming.

I read an interesting article on pedometers this morning in a recent issue of JAMA. When I digest it, I'll blog it, but it looks like just wearing one lowers BMI and blood pressure. Apparently, you'll eat less and move more just by knowing it's there. I'll have to look for mine--like contraceptives, they don't work in the drawer do they, no matter how committed you are to the outcome. After a big week of eating seems like a good time to strap it on, don't you think? I had to push a little flesh out of the way to read the numbers.

The computer fix-it places I called, never called back. I suppose they want a holiday too. I'll have to look a bit further for someone in the data recovery business in Columbus, Ohio. Know anyone?

We've gotten our fourth edition of the Smithsonian catalog--this one has the word Christmas right on the cover.

Another broken zipper. A favorite pair of slacks that went with everything--a warm tan-beige lined 100% wool. Sigh. I blogged about a broken zipper in a pair of khakis that were about 20 years old about 2 years ago. I suspect these are at least 10-15 years old because the Talbot's tag says "Made in the USA." When was the last time you saw that on a piece of clothing?

I think I'll invest in new tires. I notice the van is slipping on wet pavement. We don't get tons of snow around here, except maybe once a season, with a humongous storm about once a decade, but the roads can get icy and slushy making traction difficult. Nothing scarier than trying to get out of the way of an on-coming car and have your tires just buzz the pavement.

My friend AZ and I have challenged each other to unclutter our personal spaces. Today while looking for the Christmas wreath to hang in the outside entry, I found an empty file box in the basement. It's already labeled correctly, "Norma's notebooks," and I have a bulging box of used notebooks in my office cabinets, so I think I'll move them into this box. Does this meet the test for de-cluttering, since I'm just moving them? We lived for 34 years in a house with no basement--since having one, I've become quite careless.

Breakdown!

My laptop has failed, so unless I want to run down to the hotel each time, I won't be blogging much.

3240 How many hours are wasted

messing with new software and technology? I should have been prepared; this is my fourth printer, more if we count the ones I had to hook up when I was working. Last week I pulled a jammed piece of paper from my HP 5550 and apparently ran the print heads off track. My daughter worked on it and couldn't get the case off to get to the belt; then my husband tried it, but managed to really break it.

I called around and discovered that labor costs are about $70 an hour to fix printers, and there was no guarantee they could fix it. So off to Staples I went to shop for a new printer. First, however, I did look for a cartridge for my old, reliable workhorse, the LaserJet 4L, gasping on it's last taste of black-only ink, but the cartridge was over $90 (it lasts forever). Now that I'm used to color with my blogs, I really needed the color.
I picked one out, an HP C3180 that will print, copy and scan. Fine, I had 2 printers and a scanner on my small desk, so I figured I'd replace them with one machine. I'm a value shopper, not a quality shopper, and it had a floor discount of $20, making it $79.99. But I did go home and look on the internet for reviews. They were pretty good. So I took back my unopened $45 print cartridge (for once in my life I found the sales receipt), and my 6 used print cartridges which are good for $3 off a new purchase. It doesn't come with a USB cord--but I already had one. "Won't do," said the salesman, "the data will travel very slowly and you'll miss the best features," so without really thinking that misinformation through, I paid another $20 for a USB 2.

When I finally got it all hooked up I discovered my computer is old enough that it won't take a faster data transfer, and the USB 2 cord is doing nothing the old one wouldn't have done. Then I spent about 10 minutes in the cold garage going through the garbage and bags of soiled cat litter looking for the USB package, finally finding it in the kitchen trash.

I didn't check ahead to see if it would take card stock, and although it will, it is very cranky, and wants to reformat to note size cards, and I'm not doing that--I'm printing my own on 8.5 x 11. Also, if you don't put the little extender out on the paper tray, it shoots the paper across the room like a paper airplane.

When I tried to scan a photograph, I could find no command to "Save" or "save as" to MyPicture file on my computer. Oh, it scanned fine--but then proceeded to create a whole new set of photo files (hundreds) already stored on my computer which I didn't want and so far the only way I can figure out how to get to them is to send them to myself with e-mail. Why do these people think we want digital scrap books everytime we hook up new equipment. I have them in my genealogy file, my digital camera file, and something else, now here's a fourth one.

Also, discovered I can't turn it off (lots of lights eating up electrical current), or it will run through its color testing when I turn it on. I'm sure if I call the 800 number I'll sit and wait for an hour.

So I hooked the old scanner back up until I can figure something out that makes sense, and am rethinking my desk arrangement. Right now I have no place to put down anything I'm copying.

So don't cross me, folks. I'm really, really crabby tonight.