Technical difficulties

Computers are so frustrating! I have been connecting to the Internet through a local wireless connection for a couple of months, now. Occasionally, my dial-up MSN screen pops up, and I click the X on the corner and ignore it. Today, even though I was getting a strong wireless signal, I couldn't get to my opening page of the browser, and that irritating MSN screen kept coming up. Finally, since I really wanted to get online today, I went for the dial up. This entails me standing in the kitchen at my only phone line waiting MINUTES for each page to load. Between the fast connection at work and the constant wireless, I forgot how excruciating it is to wait for a dial-up page to load. I hope this is a temporary hiccup!

Garage sale

A co-worker (and my carpool buddy) decided to have a garage sale, so I told her I'd help. I loaded up my SUV, mostly with books, and headed over there early this morning. We agreed to have the sale Friday-Saturday. She lives on a fairly busy road for a residential area, so we didn't advertise or put out signs other than right in front of the house. My goal was to make $50 over two days and get rid of some stuff. I brought home $56 today, and hope to do well on Saturday. Barb did even better, since she had lots of furniture. Worth the time!

Power outage

This morning, about 10:20, the power went off at work for about 30 seconds (long enough for my smart-aleck boss to say, "I didn't do it!" A little after 11:00, it went out again and didn't come back on. We went out to lunch early, since we planned to do Thai Thursday anyway. When we came back an hour later, the lights were still off and cars were streaming out of the parking lot. The word was that the building was closed as of 1:00 since the power wasn't expected back on for hours. Woo hoo! I have tomorrow off to help a friend with a garage sale, so my long weekend just got longer. I hit a couple of stores on the way home, and now I have the rest of the day to load my car with garage sale stuff, and maybe even read, scrapbook and go for a bike ride. Happy me.

Kids

I don't have kids, but in the last week, I went to a dance recital and a t-ball game. I am lucky to have lots of kids in my life, and all are very involved in everything from soccer to swimming and dance to gymnastics. This gives me lots of opportunities to take pictures! Tonight, in 93-degree heat, I watched a bit of a t-ball game played by the only boy in my group of "nieces and nephews." He gives me lots of opportunites for shots, since he doesn't hold still and I have to take dozens to get a few good ones. This is where my new digital camera comes in handy!

A sucker born every minute

Okay, I have no patience when it comes to comparison shopping for big-ticket items. I was waiting outside of Best Buy when they opened this morning, and headed for the digital cameras. I left an hour later, spending $100 more than I was planning on spending, but darn it, I have a great new camera! I knew from Internet research this week that I wanted something in the Canon PowerShot family, but I didn't really know which model. My mom said it would be an emotional decision, and once I held them in my hands I would know which one I wanted. I ended up with the SD750, and it's so small I can fit it in my pocket! I've been annoying my cat (see photo added to previous post) and walking around my yard shooting everything (this post). The kid manning the camera department was very patient, and knew what to say to keep me interested. Without pushing me (which gets me mad) he stood back and watched me gravitate towards the more expensive of the five I was considering. Hmmm. I'm a sucker, all right!

Today I am thankful

Things I am thankful for today (in no particular order):

• My cat, Meeko (the most spoiled pet around)


• Thousands of books on my shelves


• The warm sunshine - and fans to keep the heat at bay


• My health that enables me to walk the neighborhood for exercise


• A good job


• Magglio Ordonez, my Detroit Tiger (even though he couldn't save today's game)


• Pasta in all its wonderful forms

Digital cameras

I have resisted getting a digital camera for many reasons. I am pretty obsessive about my pictures, putting one copy of each print in an album (I'm up to 16 very full albums) immediately after picking them up from the developer. I get triples of each print - one for the album, one to scrapbook, and one to give to the people in the photos. I am so afraid of censoring my pictures and deleting them if I had a digital camera. When I look back at old pictures, I see details that I'm so glad I have in shots that would probably have been deleted at the time they were taken. Also, as a scrapbooker, I don't trust pictures that are printed with computer ink on photo paper. The chemicals used to transform film into photos has proven to last, but digital photos look funny to begin with and then fade.

All this is leading up to today's decision to get a digital camera - as a supplemental camera. Since I claim to be moving into Web 2.0 (see first post), I find myself entering photo contests at LibraryThing and wanting to add photos to Flickr that may not be things I want copies of, but just want to take a picture of and share somewhare. My mom says I will get hooked on digital photography, and will move into a better camera, but I'm starting with something small, just for kicks. You'll see the results in this blog soon!