Test Guinea Pigs

Woohoo!!  I'm coming to you this morning from the new computer!!  I must say in spite of downloading over 39,000 images, it's quite fast!!  Too bad it took me another eight hours of constant work to get this far.  Their big new improvements don't suit me at all, including the fact it's so hard to FIND anything.  

Since this is the next version of my old computer, I thought they would be rather the same.  They are not.  How and where your files are kept is a mystery.  I spent the first two hours setting up the screens the way I like them.  This morning, that disappeared completely, back to the way I DON'T like them. 

The first order of business was to contact my internet company and fix the NO DATA problem.  There was no way I could download the photography program from the cloud without unlimited data.  That is now costing me $90 a month for Verizon MiFi.  Add to that the cost of Photoshop and it's $100 a month to keep my photography obsession going.  

So .... let's download Photoshop, Lightroom and Bridge so I can work with my photos.  It took three hours for the first one.  Photoshop is one of those programs where you can set up your work screen any way you like.  It isn't even CLOSE to what I work with, so that took two hours running back and forth between computers to get it workable.  TADA!!!  I got it.

Feeling rather smug, I pulled up this random image and made it blurrier ... as a test ... a guinea pig so to speak.  It saved it, but as a different type of file than I use.  In desperation, I contacted my old Photography instructor who is sending a video to me that should help.

Next thing I know, it's lunch time.  I began the download of the next section while preparing this gourmet lunch.  Surprisingly, it doesn't look too bad, but looks are deceiving.  It's a lean cuisine lunch, meaning the chicken is gummy and the green beans rather raw.  No matter, I forged on with the computer problems.

EIGHT HOURS LATER, I was still working on the downloads and trying to get the screen set up to my workflow preferences.  At long last I was okay .... just okay ... with the results.  I'll eventually get used to the new format, like I did with Firefox.   By the way, I'm using Safari for this blog, just to see if it works.  So far so good.

In a flash, the dogs were staring up at me with THAT look.  It was dinnertime.  For once, I had a plan for me.  Scalloped potatoes in the Ninja and leftover ham.  This recipe from my old Chef friend couldn't be simpler.  Thin sliced potatoes, thin sliced onion, salt, pepper and lots of cheese, covered with half and half.  Add a little (or a lot) of garlic to the half and half before pouring over the potatoes.  

I used the bake function for 40 minutes.  

What say ye??  Not bad, huh??

In ten seconds (for the ham to heat up in the microwave) dinner was served!!  I skipped the veggies.  Who wants to eat those when you have this!!

It was SO good!!!  I got an extra couple of bites cleaning up the edge of the potatoes in the pan.  You know how you take a spoon and take little bits off until the edge is perfectly straight?  Yes you do ... I KNOW you've done that!!!

And so, after ten minutes of trying to FIND my videos, here's one of a coyote doing a little burnout at the very end.  At least I THINK that's on this video.  

Thank you all for being my test guinea pigs for the blog.  I've discovered all the changes I made to the way the computer looks have gone back to THEIR way.  I've no idea why it didn't save any of MY changes.  I'm truly hoping and praying it did NOT do the same with Photoshop.  I really don't want to start all over from scratch after ten hours of setting things up, but then again, what else do I have to do??