A Housekeeping Note

I have decided to remove the link to "Bill's Photos" that was listed under "clinks" (A link that you click) on the right. I thought it might be more sensible to keep posting a few photos when I write a blog. I have a pro account on Flickr for which I pay $25.00 a year and I'm wondering why. Does anyone really want to look at all the photos I post? Does anyone ever look at them? I started putting them there as an extra backup in case something happened to my hard drive, but I have a back up hard drive now too. If anyone really wants to look at them, send me an email and I will send you the Flickr link.

Being a Roshesterian, Part 2

We are continuing our quest to be Rochesterians. Last week we visited Canandagua, which is a town on a lake with the same name, actually one of the Finger Lakes. We were there to visit Sonnenberg Mansion and Gardens. It was one of the homes of a rich New York banker. The gardens were really lovely. It shows what you can do if you are a banker with a great deal of money.

We stopped for a while and took at Lake Canandagua and spoke to a boating couple launching a motor boat. The lady told us that they had been there on the weekend and that the line to launch required a 45 minute wait. When they got to the ramp they realized that their battery was dead, so they had to abort their trip and return home to recharge the battery.

Later, we visited the Town of Palmyra. In addition to its fame as the place where Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormons said that the golden plates of the Book of Mormon were revealed to him, the town has a lot of other significant historical background, a lot tied to the Erie Canal. There is a general store that was closed by the owner in the 1940s because he didn't want to bother with rationing. The store has been basically untouched since that time with the actual store items still on the shelves. Nothing has been imported to replicate the actual goods. They are the actual goods.

This weekend, our son, Ted, and his family came to visit. We went to the Seneca Park Zoo and went to Durand Beach to take a dip in Lake Ontario. Well, they took a dip, I stayed on the land as the water was a frigid sixty degrees. The kids loved the zoo and didn't seem to notice that the water was cold. We sat on the beach and I realized that we had plunked ourselves down right opposite a set of speakers on a boat that was moored a little off shore. (There were a lot of boats close in.). It was okay though. The music wasn't too loud or offensive. It was like a big beach party with everyone behaving, a Sheriff's boat patrolling the water and two Rochester police officers walking the beach. Today Anne and I went back to the beach because it was a real scorcher (I didn't sign up for all of this heat). There weren't as many boats or people and this time I did take the plunge. The water was really cold. Anne said it was warmer than the weekend. The beach officially opens on Sunday when all the rules will be in place and boats will have to stay 300 feet off shore and not near the bathing area. Tomorrow, I am going, with my brother-in-law, to the Glenn Curtiss Aviation Museum in Hammondsport.

Microsoft and Me

When I decided to switch, a couple of years ago, from a Mac to a PC because of the cost, I said to myself, "Myself, Microsoft has a whole lot of software and Windows Live that will give you everything that you got with Apple." I really tried to be a loyal and faithful Microsoft user. I used Internet Explorer, Windows Live including the Picture Gallery as my main photo repository and editing tool. I even got the full version of Microsoft Word, which I haven't used much

I am pretty fed up with Microsoft. It seems that their stuff just doesn't work all that well. I had trouble with Windows Live Picture Gallery which takes forever to load and is cumbersome to use. Explorer is a bother too. Some programs tell me that I have to download the latest version o Explorer, but I have the latest version. I switched between 64 bit and 32 bit versions, then I switched to Firefox and everything works fine. For my photos I switched to Picasa. That loads quickly and give me easy to execute editing tools. Anne was having some internet issues so I changed her to Firefox and now she reports that her email loads a whole lot faster. Why is it that Microsoft programs have so many issues and that other programs can't get along with them? I thought that would be a problem with Apple software, but no, the only problem with Apple stuff is the high price. I'm not ready for a new computer yet and probably won't be for a couple of years, but, in the meantime at least, I have found some programs that work like Microsoft programs should work.

There, I got that off my chest and I posted to my blog so that my faithful readers will have something to read.