A Spooky Wellness Visit

 We were sound asleep, around 5AM this morning. Knock! Knock! Knock!

Huh? 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Wha...?

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!!!!

Steve from his room: "Can you go get that?"

I groggily pulled myself up from bed to walk over to the front door. A new set of knocks was starting so I yelled as loudly as I could with my morning dry mouth, "COMING!"

The knocking stopped. As I came around the corner to the living room I could see light outside moving around the vertical window, covered by a sheer curtain for privacy. As I unlocked the front door and opened it, I was greeted by a local policeman.

"Is Steve here?" 

Since I'd heard him call for me to open the door, I knew he was, and alive and well. It just takes him a lot longer to get himself up and and dressed enough to answer a door. I'm the one who wears old soft comfy clothes to bed. I agreed that he was here and invited the cop inside.

He informed me that they had gotten a call from his ex wife that his blood sugar was high.

Say what?

As I led him to Steve's room, a thousand  questions blew through my mind wondering what was going on. First, she lives six towns away, rarely communicates with either of us except at large family gatherings where everything is always civil. But how would she know anything about his blood sugar? Especially when I didn't? And Steve apparently didn't? The only things he has which could alert anybody to a medical problem, if one were happening, would be his cell phone, normally out in the living room so as not to disturb his sleep, or a life-alert type necklace which when bumped starts calling their network to ascertain what kind of problem needs a response.  So far it has given several calls out to their own system while he is trying frantically to negate the call after he simply moved abruptly, so we both are familiar with that and how it works. His wife is NEVER on the call list, though his daughter is. He usually doesn't wear it to bed, since that's its recharging time. And it doesn't have a clue what his blood sugar is any more than I have a clue what mine is without a little needle jab and a reading from a corresponding meter. Nothing in this house sets off an alert regarding blood sugar! Not for him, not for me. Neither of us has heard of such a gizmo. We're both at the morning monitoring stage and mindful.

Was something medically wrong with his ex? This was still "wee hours" for us. But her medical status is precarious, after a couple of strokes. She requires a wheelchair most of the time, though can manage a few steps on her own. He daughter lives in her own apartment in the same building and keeps track of her mother, assisting in a number of ways throughout the day, every day. She can obviously get to her phone by herself, and unlike us, keeps it nearby at night. (We prefer sleep, and the other one is always at hand unless in the hospital.)  But why on earth would she think he was having a medical emergency regarding his blood sugar? Was it a very vivid nightmare? Was she in trouble making her delusional?

By the time Steve was up and dressed, the cop was joined by an ambulance crew. Steve, perfectly mobile, offered to head down to the family room where he keeps his medications and various accessories. First he took his own blood sugar reading. 106! Best we've both seen from him in practically forever! He also showed them his phone to establish he'd never made an outgoing call to her in the night. (In fact a later check showed he hadn't since early September. ) I even checked my phone and verified she had made a call to my phone, also kept way separate from me while I sleep, and she had.

All agreed he hadn't prank called his ex, and nobody suspected she'd prank called 911 about him. The ambulance crew, seeing his blood sugar level, left once they were reassured of being unneeded, after a brief discussion about getting a lock box on the door with a key the police department or fire department would have the code to. 

How the call came about will be getting looked into, both on their end and ours. Steve has contacted his ex with reassurance that he is fine, and she insists her phone shows an incoming call from him, while his has no record of an outgoing call, which he showed the cop and ambulance crew. We both expressed our appreciation for their prompt response, had there been any kind of emergency, and our ongoing appreciation for their assistance for previous falls. In a while he will be calling their daughter to have her check in on her mom and check her mom's phone to see what she can find out.

Big Brouhaha!

 I just have to wonder why, some days. In this case, why does the endorsement, or withdrawal of such, make such an impact with the powers that be, hoping that by publicizing it, they can make such a difference in how people vote.

In this case, the loser of a Michigan congressional  primary battle, (former Democrat) Haley Stevens comes out against the person who beat her, Dr. Abdul Al Sayed. First she endorsed him. Now she doesn't. Everybody is blowing up over it, at least verbally, according to news reports. No telling yet if anybody is listening aside from those needing to find some news to report. Tuesday night should show the results. Meanwhile.....

My first  question is, since she lost the primary, who cares about her opinion and/or endorsement, especially when that endorsement was first given to the one who beat her in her own party, but now just bestowed to the political opponent in the opposite party who's opposing him, plus presumably everything she stood for?

Next, why so close to the election when it's too late for so many early voters to be influenced? Is she looking for some kind of favors from the former opposition party if the contest swings their way? Why would they trust her in any position of worth she might be looking for? I sure wouldn't!

She's framing opposing her former opposition who beat her in the primary as a way to support "the Jews".  I call "bullshit" on that reasoning. It's no more than sour grapes and fear mongering.  Dr. Abdul Al Sayed  (OMG! With that name he must be the Boogeyman!) is opposing the politics of Israel. You know what? I do too! I blame Netanyahu, fighting in a way designed to kill a nation over the reprehensible actions of a political group, the admittedly criminal act of kidnapping a large group of people.  But Netanyahu's bombing civilians indiscriminately, starving children and non combatants, leveling hospitals full of sick and injured as well as their medical staffs, and promising to let food aid in while closing the borders to just such aid.... I could go on. And on. Most societies call those war crimes. Few angels on either side, but no excuse for the brutality working to eliminate a people. The world has chosen to have rules for conducting war. That groups violate those rules does not justify the extremes of either side! Locate and punish the perpetrators, not their world. Difficulty is not an excuse for wiping out a people or nation, or trying to.

I'm not a Jew. Nor a Christian. Nor Muslin. Nor Hindu, Buddhist,  nor a whole list of other widely known and generally respected religions. As I've said many times before, I'm agnostic, waiting to see what/whether anything comes along after death, holding my actions now in this life to have much more meaning than words on a page or chants/songs/prayers from any belief system.  Most of those beliefs from every source tell us to be kind to one another and honest in our doings. People, being people, often disregard those teachings rather than being guided by them, and in those cases I don't hold the beliefs to be wrong, just the people to be weak ...to be kind. Stronger words often are applied, of course.

The Jews I have known are neither better or worse than, say Christians. Nor are the Muslims. They deserve all the good things that come their way as much as anybody else. But to hate Jews because of Netanyahu makes exactly as much sense as hating all Americans because of Trump, or Russians because of Putin, or North Koreans because of Kim Jung Un. In a word: none! Refusal to comply with wrong orders comes with penalties, but still is possible. It shows who you are, not what your religion or nationality is.

Haley, you lost! Sit down, shut up, and go away gracefully! Or just sit down and shut up! Find a way to be actually useful, not a problem. This isn't it.

Will This Election Season PLEASE END?

 First, yes we plan to vote, on the day of, in our small town where crowds just don't exist in mid-morning. Most times we head in we are outnumbered by poll workers. From parking to driving away it takes all of ten minutes. OK, maybe more if nobody sees that Steve needs a hand getting out of their very low chairs set out for "help" for those mildly disabled, the ones who don't need to come from their vehicle in their own mobility transportation. He can walk in, but for the decisions and marking the ballot he needs a break, sitting. Then he needs a helper. Sometimes I need to request one for him. The place is often so slow the poll workers are off chatting about weather, or crops, or some sports game, or how sad they are this fishing season is over. Good thing those conversations are easily interrupted.

Our decisions were made months ago, for all candidates with a party affiliation. Nothing airing on TV is going to change our minds. We stay informed all year, every year. So this 11th hour blitz of poison during every single commercial break is only making us angry. Lies only make us dig in  deeper.

This is the time of year we love the fact that we can prerecord everything we view on network TV channels.  We can pause, mute, skip, or whatever we need to do to eliminate the poison ruining our peace. We're very well practiced from normal commercials, avoiding them all on a regular basis. If we can't manage to get to the controls in time, we are deluged with even more reasons to stick with our original choices, even if just out of pique!

Apparently candidates and parties have way more money in hand than they know what to do with, so now they're finding new ways to try to get to us. First emails started to carry the crap. I turn on my laptop after several hours away or in the morning to see if any are interesting before I go elsewhere, perhaps what is important that I "might have missed"  - however rare- because most of the really important messages don't come with time pressure. (Seems counter intuitive, doesn't it?) Important ones will be something like a new set of test results from the doc are now posted on their secure site for me to look at. If any were truly urgent there'd be a phone call. Or there might be a reminder that a bill will be $X dollars this month (please pay by _____).  Or there might be some news from friends or family. Those are important.  Now I'm deluged by political ads, not just one or two a day from each Candidate Y, but repeated ones from many of them. Recently they just added the information - as if I might have forgotten - that records show I am a registered voter who votes regularly, and an election is imminent.

Tell me: How many people in this country have missed the fact that a major election happens Tuesday?Are any of them over three? Or under 110?

How many campaign managers believe that deluging me with whatever about their candidate so frequently that I have to spend an unreasonable amount of time clearing my email just to make it usable again is going to persuade in in a positive direction?

Who really thinks I need 8 reminders every day that there's an election coming up? Even if they aren't pushing any candidate, just the fact of me needing to show up? Is there any unlucky human in this country who is just awakening out of a coma to find out an election is happening just around the corner? More, one who can jump up and run over to plaster their ballot with well thought-out decisions, or in lieu of those, will succumb to the influence of this blast of commercials because this is apparently their target audience?

This last week, and presumably into some ugly infinity, the way it's going, I've been getting texts on my non-smart flip phone. It tends to get clogged up with a lot of crap, and stops performing as a phone any more, the only reason I really use it. I can't even answer it when I'm driving these days, which is bad enough when I can't pull over safely to check importance.  But if somebody sends a waited-for voicemail, I can't tell until I wade through all the crap, and then listen to an actual voice. If it was important, we're both SOL.

Somebody, please wake me up gently Wednesday morning with the reassurance that this whole nightmare is finally over. And by that I'm truly hoping the news is good regarding who won, as well as that all the deciding is now done for two more years!!!!!

NOT Shopping On eBay

I wanted to, honest. I had a very particular item in mind I wanted to replace, and knowing it was older, thought eBay might stand a chance of having it. I've been shopping there for decades, as long as I had a computer capable of doing so and a card accepted by PayPal.

By now I'm convinced if I had searched that item, I'd start to see ads blocking all  kinds of non-commercial sites  by covering patches of the data or information I wanted to look at. It just happened to me a couple days ago with ads on a different item (SHAME ON YOU, ETSY!) on my usual local weather site, the one which has local radar, even if it gets it wrong on the boundaries of where rain is actually falling. These days I have to do a really quick view of high and low temperatures for today and tomorrow , or they'll be covered with ads. Every time I pull it up! It normally offers ten day information on a chart, and hourly information for the current day on a different chart. I can't view them anymore, or maybe get just  one set of numbers before they're covered.

I was a bit reluctant to check on eBay, but figured what I wanted to replace might just narrowly be there if it could be found anywhere. It might be worth the risk of being flooded by unstoppable ads.  But now  this new frustration from eBay prevented any search at all. I couldn't even get on the site.

First it asked me to click in a small box to "prove" I was human. I did. It asked again. I did again. Usually one was enough, but now two? OK, that should do it. Right?

Nope!

Next I got the box of squares with fuzzy photos in them asking me to click in each one that fits in a category. I'm used to "all the bicycles" or "all the buses". 

This time the pictures were fuzzy. One had a spray bottle, no kind of label so I'd know what it had inside, and asked me to click on all the squares I'd use the bottle on. First, I don't have nor use spray bottles. So many of the squares were too fuzzy to properly identify -was that a flower a vase or pot in front of a pretty setting? Or a picture of one? Why would I spray either one? Neither with a cleaner, possibly yes if it held water but absolutely not if it were a picture. There were also possible buildings or tools or toys like Legos. My guess was they were hard plastic toys and I might spray them if I were one of those germaphobes who went around sanitizing my kids total world. Whatever I tried, it didn't work and I got too disgusted with the stupidity of the game to bother trying to use the website. 

Sorry eBay. If you can't figure out how to separate actual paying customers from cons or unbridled AI, giving the humans a reasonable chance with clear pictures, you really don't need my business. Your sellers lose out. Your potential buyers - like me - go elsewhere or decide whatever they're shopping for just isn't that important.

Trump Sent Me A Letter !!!!

OK, that's what the typing said. It came in the mail yesterday when I was busy, and had a totally different return address on the envelope. Nothing yet to draw my attention, but I don't throw ALL of those out without looking at them. At least when I do they go into the recycle bin.

The first mailing from my prescription company, from last week, indicated some changes in next year's medical insurance plans. Part D in short. Today's other  piece of mail was also from my prescription insurance company. I opened that first, they had just informed me that their formulary for which drugs are categorized how in terms of my out of pocket costs were going to be for each regular medication I'm on now. Two of them were going up. 

What else! Anybody expect their costs to go down?  Really? Care to share what you're smoking?

This piece of mail simply said I would need to find a different company for next year. 

Now that is just annoying enough in its own message, just after saying costs were going to rise. But I'm betting somebody in the corporate offices just might to want to give a thought to the high costs of of a huge mass mailing  just before a follow-up mass mailing says something making the first totally irrelevant? Is the rise in costs supposed to cover that nonsense? Is that your business plan? Especially now that I'm not paying your company a red cent next year?

OK, time to read the other letter, actually from today's mail. First thing I noticed was that it was sent out weeks ago. I guess DOGE did a bang-up job of clearing waste ... uh, useful, experienced people... out of the postal system. Several weeks? Holy Shi..... well, you get the point. The content claimed to be from Trump, giving some indecipherable illogical excuse for why he's sending me $90.  

I'd heard "he" was giving out $90  checks to seniors. First, not checks, but deposits just like Social Security gets paid. But is the $90 significant? Say, another attempt at a bribe for voting for him next month? OK, he's not on the ballot, but acts like he is. Be honest here: his real fear is he'll be impeached by a Democratically leaning congress, and suddenly have to face the consequences of the Epsein Files. And nothing in the letter really explained why now, why that amount, and why he had to stick his name in the first couple sentences.

It couldn't be him. The man is sundowning. He can't express coherent thoughts, aside from who he hates (super long list) and who he loves (Putin). The letter was written by a much more cogent hand. It won't increase my SS payment next year, nor help the drop in it that Congress's COLA is supposed to protect us from. That's Cost Of Living Adjustment, if you didn't have to  know that yet. I suspect he wants to appease us in advance - or his handlers do - when we find out all too soon that Social Security is running out because he's tapping every penny he can grab in his fist for himself and for his disasters of monuments in DC and the government no longer can continue paying us from the funds we paid into all the years of our working lives.

It does manage to throw in his usual lies, like how important we all are to him, when we know he's the only one important to him, unless we offer huge bribes. It did manage to make his illegible pointy "signature" at the bottom. Of course, when we see it, it's several inches wide and pretty tall, about the only thing one can pick out in the scritchy-scratch mess. This one is a quarter that size, both directions.

When I finished reading the page, I carefully set it in the trash. Now, note that the paper was clean and pristine. Around here that goes into recycling. But why pollute the recycling stream with that?

So... My Email system Made Some Changes....

 My fingers are sore. You know, the ones that had to keep hitting the "delete" button a few thousand times.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

They sent me the notice of change by email  in the new format they've decided to use. Luddite that I am in many things, I wish they would have left the option open for continuing with the old system. My fingers  knew what to hit where and why. Now any single stroke has to be researched first. Where are they hiding the symbol for this? Or that? Or yet another thing? Whatever the "spam" symbol is now, I'm not finding it and have to try to recall the longer version of how to accomplish that. Every time.

About four days into it, I'm actually beginning to find their new placements. (See, not totally hopeless.) I found the inbox, the delete button, and most everything else, though SPAM is still a horse on the Kentucky Derby's track in new locations each time I think I've got it. And boy, do I get spam!

Tonight I decided to settle in and tackle my unasked-for new/old email system. First thing was they allowed me the old version of light background with dark characters and symbols. Dark isn't the same color as last time, so I'm not fond of it, or not yet, and it jars whenever I open it. I may decide to go back to the white background. Maybe. Perhaps that option lept out the window once used. 

(Did I mention that one of the first things I did locate was where/how to give them feedback on  the changes? You are  guessing that I took advantage of it, aren't you?)

I got a bunch of SPAM today, the kind I've been told is just a way to test if there is a real somebody to try to fleece at this combination of letters and symbols. Most of it is recognizable as SPAM from a collection of random letters, numbers, upper and lower cases, along with symbols posing as an email address. Other "interesting" emails come in from dead people. I know, since I visited one of them in hospice and attended her funeral. They think I'll believe she's still sending me photos every few days out of her box of ashes. Intriguing view from there, no doubt, but I choose to pass. I'm just not curious enough to wonder what those pictures would look like. Both of my sons supposedly send me photos, but neither of them ever has. Ever.  And somehow there are still fools out there that think I'm in the market for penis enhancers. I have all the penis I need, thank you very much, but it just isn't mine to choose that for. I firmly believe that's for each individual owner of one to decide for by themselves. And no, I'm not going to forward those emails.

I did mention sore fingers a few paragraphs ago. I make it a point to regularly clean out my trash and spam folders. With this new change, somehow every single old spam email and deleted actual email came along with it. I had well over 800 just in the inbox, 4 of which were new, and another half dozen read but saved, all that was showing before their changeover. Over 800??????

WTF???

My "sent box" still claims to have 3400  outgoing messages in it, but again, those are supposed to be long gone and done with. Tonight I had the patience to clean out incoming emails for the second time, going back over three years to where we were collecting bids for ways to get our belongings shipped north for our move, communications with our realtor, and notices about our solar bills. They also had one side of the conversations I held with my former email penpal, up to the time he no longer could reach a keyboard. I knew we communicated regularly but there were over 600 just from him! He was a climate change geek, in the best possible way to mean that, and shared all the latest data and links, plus little tidbits on health or his art, which he was no longer able to do. Seeing it all in one continuous feed, I was overwhelmed by how long it had been going on. As a process, I just noted the sender and if questions, the subject. If my keyboard were noisy, one could have heard taps less than a second apart.

I was also annoyed by how long the email company had been keeping them all. Hey, it's good when Blogspot does that, but not when mail does. I have to wonder if those are actually deleted even now, while my fingers are tingling from the work, or will they pop up again sometime? 

For now, my inbox claims to have 5 messages in it, read and unread combined, and spam claims to be empty. But tomorrow or sometime soon I'm going to warm up my fingers again and delete my Sent box. Yep, all 3400 alleged emails in it! Well, maybe not 5 or so.

After my fingers stop tingling, of course.

If I feel that patient. It will be raining then, after all.....

Fueled On Rage

  Call it "fighting with" my computer if you will. First, it's ancient in the opinion of all those who'd love to sell me a new one. Hey, it still (mostly) works, OK? But apparently I've overloaded my photo library memory. It was to the point  where I'd be blithely typing along (OK, young'uns, keyboarding if you must. It's still a qwerty keyboard, just with some new symbols.) But all of a sudden despite typing as usual nothing would show up on the screen. I'd have to stop, go back and read to figure out what I had been trying to say, and plug it in at the right place. At times it would be 7 or 10 dropped characters, other times other numbers. In short, just ANNOYING! Piling on where piling on was the last thing needed!

I figured I'd overloaded my photos storage. (Need I say DUH! ?) No surprise since I haven't been purging it enough lately, but using it heavily, sending out daily photo filled shots to a friend. That's taken up time often spent elsewhere. She is no longer communicating, so I'm fearing the worst for her... or possibly in her circumstances and with her beliefs, going on to the best. I also am working on a project for the upcoming holidays, using my own photos, tailored  to recipients individually. I'm beginning to understand what "painstaking" has its roots in. Continuous frustration does become rage, with varying results, like no ability to set the cause of it down, it's own kind of pain, it's own set of results.

The people on my list are a very eclectic bunch, so I'm finding individual combinations for each of them. And no, no hints of the nature of the project. It starts with trying to figure out what would appeal to each individual or couple, thinking back to what I've shot over the decades of going digital, and worst of all, locating the photos I think I have. I already have been filling up thumb drives, each with a specific type of shot or location during out travels. Whoever invented thumb drive could make it a hell of a lot easier! Once I plug one in, what comes up are rows and rows and rows of tiny rectangles in a grid pattern. If they have some order it's not apparent, except perhaps by order taken, since while fighting with it all is identified by the sequential numbers the camera gives each shot as it's taken. So... I changed digital cameras a couple times in my years of shooting. No camera has any way I know of to communicate with another camera what the last number was. How do they avoid duplicate numbers? If you told me I only used one SD card and kept recycling it I could see that happening. I confess to that a couple times. But I change those too. Since they can record time and dates to print on pictures, they must connect with operating wifi  or cell systems. One time I found all my photos showing up with date and time stamps. I had no idea how that happened and dug for a while for how to "correct" that... for next time. Cropping fixed it on already taken photos. Occasionally the cropping needed would spoil the photo. Sigh.....

 Did I mention these cameras were the same model and none of them came with a manual? Or that I was buying them, after the first one, online, listed as refurbished?) They are much cheaper that way, and muscle memory is a great way to use equipment you depend on when you're concentrating on getting the shot instead of  taking a pause, fiddling with camera controls. If you have to think about the controls chances are you've already missed the shot. I practically never shoot subjects that stand still and pose. OK, scratch that: mostly flowers stand still. That bird is flying or swimming or hunting.Those clouds are moving and changing the light. Wind blows, leaves drop, bees fly away, kids are perpetual motion machines. And seasons change.

All that concerns getting the photos. I wouldn't be here with a problem if that first part had been mostly overcome. The current problems are finding the photos to use for the project, out of thousands.

When I open up a thumb drive, what pops on my screen are lots of short rows of teeny tiny rectangles. They start with a logo on them instead of a photo. If you can't clear that, it won't open at all. As long as the same camera was used, the logo is the same on every single one. It takes a while, usually imperceptible,  to lose the logo and "see" something under a half inch by 3/16th inch which holds, potentially, 16 megapixels of data. It just looks like a blob of some over-all color or tiny bits of different ones. No clue yet as to the contents of each one. I have to click here and there, opening a selection to get an idea, first, of where the ones I'm looking for landed on the thumb drive,  then where they were taken. That might get me a when. 

When? I can't tell a when at first glance? OK, how many times have I stopped for a couple days at Rocky Mountain National Park? How many trips to Crex? To the Gilbert Water Reserve? To northern Arizona? Utah parks? The back yard as the plants and passing critters change? Since Alaska, Florida, and Oregon were unique enough to not be worth their own thumb drives, some of those photos might be on a drive with scenery, others on a drive with people. Take Oregon: the seaside pics are on one thumb drive, the wedding photos, the reason we were there in the first place, are on one labeled for people. I even have one drive I kicked videos off to, nice to see if one is very tolerant of bumpy jerky motions. Sigh. I'm not even including any of those, even to edit out a single frame. Getting a bit of information without having to search an entire thumb drive or series of them could make the job much easier!

Are you starting to see how the frustration builds? It's just starting.

I have ten thumb drives to sort through at the moment, now that I've tossed out the ones that no longer send the signal to the laptop that they exist and can be opened? I'm supposed to see a logo and, say, "empty" if no pics are on it. Or AK. Or MN. Or RMNP since, just from shots taken there over the years, it's earned more than a full thumb drive on its own. Others land on Miscellaneous Travels.  That would be drives #1 or #2, so far. I have tried to tape a tiny paper indication on the outside of the drives. The tape is only so wide and if taped crosswise instead of lengthwise,where it might actually do some good, it prevents me sliding the connector forward to insert. It may have departed once that tiny bit of tape dried and hitchhiked to Elsewhereland. Each drive without a tag must be checked. Some are disposed of when nothing indicates they exist once I insert them. Not even if I wait five minutes. How do you open something that insist it doesn't exist? If anybody has a solution for that, let me know. For me, it's toss and replace, fingers crossed that it's not been ruined like the Crex backups. I'm getting adjusted to that particular loss but it still bites, especially when I remember some of the really good shots that were on that drive, like bald eagle close-ups. Reminders don't improve the mood.

Over a week later I've manged to find most of the shots I remember for the project. I pulled them off their thumb drives and parked them on my desktop with a new name. It's easier to locate them again when they're labeled, say, "elk1" and "elk2" up  to "elk10" and so on. Then those got collected and gone through again, kicking out the ones not good enough or not for the particular project, and pulled off the desktop either for a new thumb drive or sent into my main photo library.  For days I fought to get them back into my library from a thumb drive, but my laptop won't take them in like it does off an SD card. (I call that process "insert SD and the library sucks it all up."  Or, "insert and suckup" for short. Trial and lots of grindingly annoying error finally showed me I could click and drag a stacked pile of them, turned into a unit by drawing the cursor nonstop over the stack, which can then be clicked and dragged into an open photos library. I often do that when tossing them to trash, so I'm familiar with the technique, just now delighted that it works to input them to the photo library for editing. Suddenly I could crop old photos again for new purposes!! Or make light and color changes like I do with every raw photo arriving there! Some change colors a bit in storage for years, especially sitting for months in a hot PODS.

Then I got to the place where certain attempts to do anything in the photos library made the program crash. I could go back in and discover most of my photos had landed, but certain ones I found important were no longer either on the desktop or in the library. I know exactly which ones they are, but there is a repeat of the job ahead in going back to those tiny hard-to-decipher tiny rectangles and locate the ones previously sitting on my desktop all over again. Was that particular one in the MN file? Or a National Park file? Or AZ? Or even the People one because it combined two themes?

I placed certain select "probably" pics on a special thumb drive, used for taking pics to get printed, like for X-mas cards over the years. It's easy to pick out because it has a "tail" that curls a round in a loop so I can slip a finger into it and keep it in possession while fiddling with the machine to select its choices for what I'm there for this time. Who needs to hunt all over a store's floor to find a dropped drive? It had been hard enough to pick out these. It works just as well for taking print files to my home printer, hooked up to another, older laptop reserved for that use and the only one which works with my old printer. Just text files however. It's old enough that it doesn't do photos, never mind colors. I need photographic quality prints, best done in a properly equipped store. I'd hate to have to do the hunt all over again for a photo after changing direction. The missing picture I really need right now is on one of three possible thumb drives... somewhere. I know it's there. I saw it three days ago now. It was taken on our "free again to move because we have our covid shots" extended vacation trip, with Covid hitting all kind of national parks nearly empty of visitors and rangers both, a great photo op time we took good advantage of. Elk slept next to ranger checkpoints, no waiting in long lines to get into the right space for that particular shot of landscape, and yet somehow the restrooms still got cleaned... enough. Fantastic trip, whole lotta shots, bunch of thumb drives to go through for my hunt for that one perfect photo.

It was hours past my bedtime so I tried to give myself a break. As I tossed and turned, obsessing over a few particular photos, I couldn't sleep. There was nothing to do but get back up and head back to the computer and drives and sort out what I could. I resulted in getting some progress, and eventually two hours of actual sleep before the need to continue while I could remember what was lost, and change some plans of which shot to use where while I could still recall my plan. I quickly typed notes to myself to keep the new details.

Giving up on all sleep, I also popped up with a "must-do-this-first" plan. Obviously I couldn't afford new memory right now, helpful as a few terabytes might be. Property taxes come first and in a couple weeks. In the overall scheme, I can try a small version of my plan to do a test on the overall concept. But meanwhile, I need to pull photos out off the computer's photo library and load another, empty, thumb drive first!

The choice was easy. I had recently gone through and purged some old ones where I had too many duplicates by choosing better ones out of, say seven, of which one or maybe two were worth keeping. Since I was putting some back in for the project, and the system kept crashing, it still wasn't empty enough. One category was the primary culprit: flowers. Each new season the same flowers enchant me all over again. Maybe this year in different light, or it's got a different backdrop, or.... It was time to locate an empty thumb drive that would still identify itself, then change it's title from "empty" to "flowers".  

As I started that, the system was still crashing too often. I could always pull it up again, but where I was pulling from was the oldest of its files and it reopened at the most recent. There was a whole damned lot of scrolling each time back to  the earliest. Three minutes wasted each time? Ridiculous! And adding more irritation into the whole project. I had a fix to help that however. Lots of my photos of flowers either had been winnowed down to one on its own like, or maybe two (as I thought erroneously at the time) or had just enough shots in it to overflow one full line and drop a single or double down to the next. I could start from the bottom, for one thing, keeping the post-crash scrolling as short as possible, and fairly quickly clear those out by a line at a time, prioritizing short lines, erasing them from the library. So that's what I did. Mind you, I still hadn't slept more than that two-hour bit in 2 days, so I cleaned up just just the short lines and called it a night. At least the vertical or scrolling distance was significantly shortened, time and irritation saved. It still manages a crash, but much more rarely.

After, finally, a reasonable amount of sleep, plans back in place for making the job easier while still an enormous time-killer, I stopped being fueled by rage. There will be more purging flowers EXCEPT those taken at Crex. There will be another photo contest next year, and the next, and previous years photos remain eligible. Wildflowers are always a category. I'm still pissed that the thumb drive labeled for their caegory was one of the "I don't exist" drives and had to be tossed. The others hadn't been labeled at all, so I'm consoling myself that they are blank anyway. But I still have some previously selected out photos that need to be found again.... somewhere. Once the purging of flowers is complete, I'll be back up to the job. Or rather, the photo library will.

OK, OK: both.