Getting awfully poor at this

OK, so we have had 2 months of rain 98% of the days and this was supposed to be summer in Ireland? Hellooo????... SomeONE forgot to change the switch to summer OR decided that as we had a great April and May and 2 good summers for the past 2 years we should not be spoiled and given yet another REAL summer. I can handle greay and miserable for 6 months of the year, but 10 months? That's a bit much, isn't it? Mind you, don't be fooled by some of the photographs on my Flickr pages. Read the comments I posted below some of the lovely cloudscapes. They are there because rain is on the way.... So that is my excuse for not having been more regular over the last few weeks - I've succumbed to grey weather depression.

Well, not really I suppose. Mostly I've been playing with my new Pentax and then tried to learn how to do layer work on photographs to get them to look bootiful. That has been keeping me busy and out of mischief. I have now NEARLY cracked it. Much better understanding of it using my recently purchased Adobe Photo Elements 5.0. You see, what triggered it was that I bought this Digital Camera magazine and they had there fabulous images and they showed you how to do it with layers. So I tried it after a quick glance through and, by accident, created the Pastel Rose image on my Flickr page. This has driven me demented for the last 3 weeks. I am too stubborn to go back to the tutorial on the disk, and just have not been able to get it right again. I NEARLY got it right once more, then nada, zilch and nix. Nothing! However, I THINK, I nearly have it now after spending several hours at my computer over the last week-end.

Anyhow, that is why I have been so scarce. I have been frantically trying to replicate my mistake. If I hadn't done it once by accident, none of this would have happened!

Got an email from someone in Colorado last week saying he had saved hundreds of dollars using a website called Yayah.com. be careful if you type in the URL and do not follow the link. There is a similar named site at Yahyah.com with an extra H in it. Had a quick look and it is quite interesting. You register and give them your details, then enter 2 phone numbers - your mobile and that of the person you want to dial and it connects the two for a few pennies. Not quite VoIP rates, but a heck of a lot cheaper than hotel phones or even calling cards and quite simple to use. It does assume you have broadband access and if you do and you have a VoIP account you could make cheaper calls, but it is an excellent option for people who travel and have their laptops and Internet access.

I am now fully switched over to Windows Vista AND Office Vista. I can't say that it is more stable than Windows XP, although it has some nice features and is a bit simpler when it comes to installing new devices and services, but when it fails, it gets a lot more complex. All the different versions can drive you nuts as well. My laptop came with Vista Home installed but I use it in the office as well. Only thing is, it won't let you log onto a Domain as out office network uses, without upgrading to Vista Ultimate for the Ultimate price. So I ended up having to fork out the extra dollars. And of course then Acrobat kept crashing Outlook until I upgraded to Acrobat 8.0 from 7.0, so more money (AND even MORE infuriating is the price discrimination - US$99 but in the EU we have to pay €132! Nearly 50% more! What a ripoff!) and now I find that my Password tool I use, AnyPassword, won't let me access my passwords unless I upgrade to AnyPassword Pro. So I downloaded the trial version, and it won't let me save my changes because I have more than 10 passwords in it.

*Sigh* this Windows Vista thing is going to be QUITE pricey.....

Since my daughter had been on vacation in Ireland with us and went back home I do find that I send her texts more often of small little things that I am doing, just to keep up the contact. Now what does that remind me of? Hmmm... now let me think?... Oh, yeah that's right - Twitter and Jaiku. Remember when I reviewed them aeons ago I said it is interesting but I couldn't really understand it yet Leo Laporte of TWIT and various others were avid subscribers? Well, I am starting to understand how, when you are away from people who are close to you, this can be a way of just keeping up that little bit of personal touch.

Anyhow, enough rambling for one day. Next week I am in Kiev, and no doubt I will have some interesting news to report from there!