I’m back in business

I headed out early this morning on a mission!  It was about a 100 mile drive to Idaho Falls, and the nearest Best Buy.  After two hours of driving, I took my camera in to the Geeks to see what they thought.  They say the portion of the camera that connects the battery to the components that run the camera are toast. They don’t know the reason this happened.  The bottom line is that my camera isn’t going to work.  I will send it in to Canon to see if it can be repaired, but in the meantime I needed to find a camera that works!  I ended up with a Canon  Rebel XS.  It is similar to what I had with a few advancements in technology in five years.  I wanted a camera that would match the telephoto lens that I already have, and wouldn’t cause me to go into bankruptcy. 

It wasn’t cheap, but I got to thinking on that 200 mile round trip.  Photography is a hobby that gives me a lot of enjoyment, and an average of $100/year isn’t too bad.  I think that’s less than 33 cents/day to keep me happy.  :)  I can live with that.  Anyway, I told the salesman that I’d take one.  Yea, right.  It turns out that they didn’t have any in stock; they were on back order, and it would take over two weeks before they would get a delivery.  :(  I ended up buying the floor model at a discount below the “on sale” price.  When I left Best Buy, the camera was all set up ready to go.
When I was driving to Idaho Falls, the Grand Tetons were brilliant in the morning sun to the east.  On my return trip, some clouds had moved in, but I stopped at an historic marker anyway to give the new camera a try.
The famous Three Tetons are there on the horizon under the clouds.  What a gorgeous day it was for a drive.  I also stopped to investigate a couple of national forest campgrounds on the way back.  I’m not sure I could fit my rig into the camping sites, but the campgrounds were located in the mountains and were the kinds of places I enjoy going.

Once I got home, I took Emma out for a walk and brought the camera along to test it further.
    

I ended up crawling around on my knees to try to get some shots of the low lying wildflowers that are beginning to bloom in the fields.  I’m going to have to make some adjustments to get used to this camera, but I’ll be working on it.  :)



That little trip to Idaho Falls took me about six hours today, and I was thankful that Pam was able to take Emma for a very long walk while I was gone today.  I know Emma appreciated it also!  She’s sleeping like a rock right now.
This is tonight’s view to the north of the campground shortly before sunset.

Now that I’m back in business with a camera, I’m feeling pretty good.  If I could just get all the cracks in my fingers to heal up from the cold weather, I’d really be a happy camper!

Thanks for stopping by….talk to you later,  Judy

Challenging the brain cells!

I could have also titiled this post as "getting a new toy."  Yes, I went back to Austin/Cedar Park to the Best Buy to purchase the new laptop.  Little did I know that the time involved would be similar to purchasing a new car!  You know how that goes......hurry up and wait, for hours and hours.  Ugh!  I don't do well waiting hours and hours.  I purchased a Dell with a 17" screen and quite a few bells and whistles.  Scanning the plastic charge card was the easy part.  Getting the "Geeks" to get it ready to use and install the virus protection program was the time consuming part.  After three hours, it was finally ready to go.  So I headed for the nearest Sprint Store to have them install my aircard software.  When they started, they asked where my power cord was.  Hmmm, shouldn't it be in the box?  Apparently not!  The "geeks" forgot to pack it back in the box, so off I went on a return trip to Best Buy through the busy Saturday traffic.  When I got there, I had to wait in line to speak to a representative, and then he had the nerve to give me grief about it.  I took a deep breath and eventually got the missing power cord.  By the time I got back to the Sprint Store, they had installed the aircard software, and I was ready to go.

Poor Emma; she was in her crate for six hours while I got everything taken care of.  That was more time than I ever thought it would take.  We went on a nice walk when I returned, but I was chomping at the bit to see how things were going to work.

No sooner did I start unpacking the new laptop, when the phone rang and my son, Daniel, was calling to see if I had bought the new computer.  He then helped me through the intitial steps with Windows 7.  Of course, computers is what he does for a living,  and for me he was talking so fast that I struggled to keep up.  Once he hung up, I tried tinkering at my own speed, and was able to transfer over quite a bit of the things from my old computer by myself.  Slow and steady wins the race in my case.

I must say that I notice an astounding difference in the speed of trying to do things on this new computer.  I've been able to load all my travels pictures from the last four years, and get everything on my favorites bar that I had before.  I feel like I've really accomplished a lot today.  I guess I'll need to install a Word program before I can transfer over my spreadsheets.  I also have a few other programs that I want to install, but I'm afraid I've had enough of a brain challenge for today.  Time to chill out in front of the TV for the evening.  I'm a happy camper with this new toy.  :)

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later,  Judy

Oh, oh....I just noticed that I don't have the Google toolbar yet, so no spell check tonight.  Hope I didn't do too bad in that department.  :(

Happy Birthday to Me!

Normally, I wouldn't post anything about it being my birthday, but today was a special one. Early in the morning, Robyn, Avery, and I headed out to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore about 40 miles from Robyn's house. I was on a mission. I turned 62 today, so I wanted to purchase my America the Beautiful Senior Pass (formerly known as the Golden Eagle Pass). For the princely sum of $10.00, I now am the proud owner of the Senior Pass that will allow me free entrance to all National Parks, Monuments, Nat'l Wildlife Refuges, and all other national sites for the rest of my life. In addition, I will get half off on all camping fees at these facilities and Corps of Engineer Parks. Yee Haa!! I plan to make good use of this pass starting in two weeks when I meet my sister and brother-in-law at a Corps of Engineer Campground near Hannibal, MO.

While in the area, I also checked into the possibilities of camping at the Indiana Dunes State Park campground this September when I return here to visit my newest grandchild. I won't be able to stay with the motorhome in Robyn's driveway since they will be having quite a bit of construction going on at the time and their driveway will not be available. When we got back to the house, I made reservations at the park for Sept. 21-27.

For dinner, we all went to Red Lobster, and, yes, I had lobster. I do like that crustacean! Afterwards, Dennis, Avery, and I went to Best Buy (after dropping Robyn at the house to work on a recommendation she had to write for a fellow Army Reservist). Can't understand why she thought it might be easier to do with the rest of us out of her hair. :) I'm thinking about a GPS unit and a hard drive to back up my computer, and Dennis was very helpful giving me input on these devices while we "window shopped" and gave Robyn some calm time.

After watching the latest episode of Deadliest Catch, the young folks headed off to bed, and I retired to my room to do this blog and some computer time. I've got to pick up Emma in the morning, visit Myrddin, and drive 419 miles back to Swan Lake. It will be another long day tomorrow, so I'd better pack it in for today.

Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy