KELLY DOES BATTLE WITH WIN 7 & VERIZON

Heavily rain laden gray clouds spread across the great sky canopy from horizon to horizon this morning bringing us bucket’s of moisture on & off for most of the day.  Better weather ahead but we're sure going to have one big huge clean up in the motorhome Friday.

The skies here in southeastern Arizona are nothing short of spectacular whenever a weather front comes through & I never tire of gazing in wonderment at the 360 degree panoramic view that makes me think I am standing in the middle of a Rembrandt painting.   The views are constantly changing & the colors run the whole spectrum from vivid to pastel.  Physical & geological parts of the surrounding mountains remain the same but their weather induced moody faces are constantly changing.  Shafts of sunlight, deep shadows & wispy clouds mixed with pallets of color fill the skies from mountaintop to mountaintop & play their artistic brushes across the valley floor & up the mountainsides for as far as the eye can see.

I know that a lot of my photos are repetitive & the same landscape here at the ranch is seen over & over but it is the ever changing light that gives each photo it's distinctive individuality.  In last night's blog the header photo at first glance may have at first appeared to be the planet earth.  In fact, it was the moon.  I took the photo in late afternoon when the sky was still blue which in turn gave the moon a blue caste.  In Picasa 3.6 I used the 'Focal B&W (black & white) to turn the overall photo into a black & white with the focal color point on the moon.  I enhanced the blue color a tad & that made it appear to be a photo of the earth taken from.....maybe the moon:))  Just another example of what that simple & easy to use little Picasa photo editing program can do.

Laurie, in SEMI TRUE TALES had an interesting comment in her blog today.  "we have more, and often closer, friends as full timers than we did in our prior, stationary lives."  Kelly & I have found this to be the case as well.  Although not full timers we have found that people we have met in our travels are a different type of people than most of those we know back home.  There is a common bond amongst RV folks that maybe isn't talked about a lot but it is there.  Friendships are formed through common interests, necessity, & a sense & understanding of a nomadic & gypsy way of life.  RV'ers generally have their best foot forward when meeting each other because we are all aware when company is parted there is a very real chance you will never see those folks again.  It's just the nature of the RV lifestyle.  Friendships can be made in an instant & last a lifetime with memories traveling forever.  All RV folks have lived in the sticks & bricks homes at one time or another & at some point in their lives decided there has to be more to life.  They all have a sense of adventure about them, a feeling of freedom, & an awareness that life does not go on forever.  They have made great sacrifices in giving up homes & business's & moving away from friends & families.  Most RV folks have a love of the outdoors & nearly everyone travels with their pets because we have also found most RV folks are animal lovers.  RV'ers are people who have broke with society's 'normal' way of doing things.  They had the courage to break away from what most people perceive to be a 'normal lifestyle' & it is this difference in RV people that bonds them together & cements the lasting friendships.

I did manage to get all our downloads into the new computer at the Elfrida library this morning & everything went smoother than normal.  However, Kelly ran into problems this afternoon trying to set up our Verizon air card with Win 7.  Not compatible it said at first so Kelly tracked it back & found a driver problem.  Straightened that out & ran into an update problem.  Squared that one away & immediately ran into more problems with Verizon & Win 7.  She finally resolved all the problems except for a connection management issue which she'll tackle tomorrow.  I was not happy to find out Win 7 does not come with my good old trusted & reliable buddy, Outlook Express.  Outlook is long gone from Microsoft's stable & has been replaced by something called Windows Live Email.  It has a few similarities to Outlook but definitely not the same.  I suppose I will get used to it in time but I've been with Outlook since way back in the Win 95 days & we worked well together.  Oh sure, we have Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, etc but I have never liked any of them with all their crappy ads, unnecessary clutter, & backasswards way of doing things.  Outlook was straight forward & easy to use in all aspects.  RIP Outlook Express:((

And welcome to Susan Smeal for joining our gang of followers.  You are in good company Susan:))

GROANER'S CORNER:((  The best way to forget all your troubles is to wear really tight shoes.

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The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.