A Time to Laugh

Thanks to those of you who’ve asked where I’ve been the last few days.  The short answer is that I got a new computer.  I switched from a PC to a Macintosh.   I had heard how “easy” they were to figure out …. and well, I’m not sure what it says about me, but I didn’t think a lot of it was really that “easy”.  I’ve got most of the kinks worked out now but not without quite a bit of time spent working on it.

For example… the computer came with a free printer.  Great!  Hooked the computer up (actually Caroline did that) fine.  Got the printer out of the box but realized there was no USB cord.  I still don’t know what USB stands for but after calling the Mac help desk I realized it should stand for U Should’ve Bought.   Unfortunately, we didn’t realize we didn’t have the cord until 11:00 PM the night before Caroline had a paper due.   About 1:00 AM I learned how to import or export (not sure which….I was clicking any button that looked reasonable!) the file to an email.  I sent it to a good friend and said I’d be by on my carpool run in the morning to pick it up.  We found it packaged in a manilla envelope in her mailbox.   I told Caroline….“its great to have good friends” and off we went.

Then there was the issue of trying to put a link onto my blog.  I wanted you to see a youtube video that I thought was great.  I finally drove to the Apple store in the mall and declared at the help desk that I was a blogger and on my PC I could add links but on my Apple I could not.  They couldn’t have been any nicer but I know they were thinking….“this lady is WAY old.”  I’m not kidding, the average age of the workers was maybe 22 and they all knew a LOT about computers.  Anyway…. long story but currently my Mac can’t do youtube links on this blog.  So, I’ll have to do them when I hook back up my PC (which I thought I was giving to my kids).

This presents another problem b/c most of you may understand routers and things, but me, again, not so much (and sadly Bill admittedly doesn’t know that much either).  So that was another trip, this time to Best Buy to be helped by more 20 somethings who I’m sure were shocked at our lack of technological skills.

Any way, … we are slowly but surely getting up to speed on all this.  Still no USB cord, still no router and still no way to add the links… but hey, my computer does some other cool stuff that I’m sure I’ll enjoy once I learn how to use it.  The nice guys at the apple store said I can have 52 lessons for $79 plus $99 to transfer over everything from my old computer.  I’m starting to think the Amish may actually be onto something.  This stuff is hard and expensive!!!!

The clips I had wanted to post were actually taken at a dinner held in New York City last Thursday night.  It was the night after the third and final presidential debate.  Both candidates took the night off from debating and declared it was time to laugh.  And laugh they did and I laughed right along with both of them.  And it felt good.  Yes, the are concerns and frustrations all around, but every now and then you need to stop and take time to laugh.

The candidates were at the Alfred Smith charity banquet. They were helping to raise money for a cause other than themselves and were both great sports in the process.  They roasted each other, themselves and they made you grateful to live in a country where people from opposing parties can actually sit down (weeks before an election!) together and laugh.

I wish I could give you the link but if you go to www.youtube.com and type in McCain and Obama and dinner, you’ll find the videos.  Watch them both….they are both very funny….and I’m telling you….you will laugh and it will feel good.

Now if I can just remember to laugh next time I’m at the computer store with another one of my “issues”!