Part two of the computer drama

I thought I might try to explain computers in OUR lives. We have two laptops (like in the bathroom - his and hers) I have an Asus and she has a Toshiba. They have both been great but are starting to get some age on them. However if we don't spill any drinks on them, they should last a good while longer.

They are a large "part" of our lives. Besides Fiona's blog, we use them for Internet research, emailing, photo organization and viewing, music collection and listening. Fiona does photo "things" such as cropping and resizing and adding on photo captions and calendar making and....(you get the idea, she does all of these things to astound me with her abilities - and she does a good job of that!!!) (Quietly - I was forced to say that, she will be reading this. Really, though, she does astound me with her abilities in so many areas - and in such a small, quiet package! She is my treasure - but don't tell her or I will never live it down!) My bread is now buttered and I can move on!

I'll go with RESEARCH first. That is probably our most important area, for us. We will be talking and a question will come up. My research assistant (her) will usually look it up for us. Sometimes hours later and much discussion on this and other subjects, we will move on. Sometimes, we just want to verify what someone told us or something we heard on the radio or on the computer. (We haven't had a TV for years.) We trust very little and verify a lot. She is wonderful at finding "things" for me. And we can be kept busy for hours on end learning this or that. And one subject leads to another leads to another leads... You get the idea. Our interests vary from travel to politics (slightly) to cooking to gardening to surviving to history to LEARNING. And, of course, computers, for me. We go a little bit of everywhere in our quest for knowledge. We enjoy learning.

As an aside on this, Fiona does me a couple of calendars every year. It has to be plural for her to get everything on them. She has all kinds of knowledge and trivia on them. She did one calendar that was just cider apples and facts and trivia on those apples. She did one on varieties of geese. One on the cuts of a goat carcass and its use. One on varieties of apples for household use. One on varieties of goats. One on chickens. You get the idea. Every month we learn and review our knowledge. I look forward to each new calendar page.

And the trivia: November Cider Apple Calender Trivia

New York is the second largest producer of apples in the US.

46% of people think cider is a great drink for barbecue.

Most ciders are a blend of different varieties of apples.

Cider apples are listed as: sweets, sharps, bittersweets, and bittersharps according to acid and tannin content.

Hippo milk is pink!

Armadillos can walk under water.

Honeybees have hair on their eyes to help collect pollen.

Cows can sleep standing up, but can only dream while lying down.

Sheep can survive up to two weeks buried in snow drifts.

President John Adams drank a tankard of cider every morning to promote good health.

If you visited Monticello, President Jefferson would have offered you some cider.

Turkeys have heart attacks. When the US Air Force was testing to break the sound barrier, fields of turkeys would drop dead!

Fiona finds all kinds of things to amuse and entertain me. She fills my life with laughter!!!

I am getting distracted. Back to RESEARCH. We each research things, but she is the main researcher - my research assistant! This has come in handy for our land research. She hunts out properties for sale in our land area of interest, size, and price range. She finds the property and photos on different sites. She collects the information for us. She will call the realtor for info. She will collect plat maps. She will gather info on the area. She gets anything and everything that we can find on the property, owners, and previous owners. And neighbors.

We had one property that was idyllic. Only a five hundred acre cattle ranch past it. End of the road. Hilltop. Fantastic views. Lots of wildlife. Nice mix of timber and pasture. Nice breeze both times we visited. Nice, older house freshly remodeled (and well done). Nice basement. Nice reports. Nice neighbors (down the road, but not in sight). Just what we were looking for. Perfect. Couldn't be much better. No sign of it, it couldn't be seen, but there was a large lake on three sides and the five hundred acre ranch was going to become about a hundred lake front properties. And the serenity would be gone. Research can be invaluable. And to top things off, two miles away was a quarry.

When someone passes us a pass-a-long (think forwarded) email with this or that "fact", we will often research the facts behind the story. Most of them are elephant dung (biggest pile I could think of). Don't believe them. My sister has quit forwarding me this stuff because I kept sending back rebuttals with facts. Unkind but true. Just because you "want" it to be true, doesn't make it true. If it is fact, pass it along. If it isn't fact or you don't know for sure, trash it or verify it for yourself. Desirability is not an excuse! You are responsible for what you forward and its accuracy, not the person who sent it to you!!! They are only responsible for what they sent you, not what you sent out.

We have been researching quality tools (not home depot crap). You pay a fortune and it outlives the grandkids. It is easier to work with because of the balance and quality. And they are not going to be loaned out!!!

Greenhouse Megastore.com was a great find. Heating mats, really good, large pots, marker tags, outdoor markers (pens), etc. Our tomato plants really enjoyed the large pots. They never did get rootbound. No transplant shock. Nice, tall, strong plants out of the pots. And the seedlings just took off, no shock. Prices were high, but so was the quality. This will be our third year for using the pots and they are still going strong. Buying quality is cheaper in the long run. To us, we feel it is better to wait a year to get more money to buy quality than it is to rush out and buy cheap and cuss and fight it for a couple of years before having to replace it. Quality lasts!!! Long after the grandkids have forgotten you for that new girl down the road!

As you can gather, I hope, computers can help in everyday life. They are much more than games and videos and chatting and emailing. They can help in everyday events and purchases. You might even get a "for an old person, you are smart". You can learn a solution for a homestead problem. You can learn from a person "down the wire". Think: Blogs!

 

One last trivia for today: (Fiona's little factoid) Women speak an average of 8,000 words a day. Men only get out 3,000 words per day. (We can't get a word in edgewise.) So, guys, it's a fact! Get used to it. Just shut up and listen and you will learn! And, who knows, she may appreciate it so much you will reap the benefits!

Until the next time, may God bless you more than He has me!

Ralph