Wedding Photos

Photo: Mr. Dickie (Maryland State Flower in our backyard)

... you can choose to be happy with what is, rather than bemoaning your unrealized fantasies. (M.J. Ryan, Instant Health and Happiness Booster, 16 September)

We attended the wedding of Keith and Yessina Marston on the 13th. Afterwards I used my digital camera to edit the photos I took. Yesterday I decided I was ready to move the photos to my computer thumb drive. Because of the edits the photographs weren't all together on the memory card. I tried using Picasa and HP Photo Essentials to select and copy the photos. I couldn't make either program do what I wanted. Later I copied the photos to a new folder on the thumb drive using "drag and drop." There were sixty-two photos. Next I used Picasa to lighten twenty-two of the photos that were too dark. The next step is to upload the photos to the Internet so I can share them with the Marston family. I think I will create a Picasa album. I have no idea how long it will take to upload that many photos. Maybe it will be too tedious with my phone connection to the Internet.

Last night I was in The Family Treehouse genealogy chatroom. Near the end of the chat there was a nice surprise. My longtime AOL friend, Betty, showed up. She hasn't been able to use some of the AOL features for about a year. She received a Mac computer as a gift and was never able to master using it with AOL. Finally she decided to go back to using her PC. It was nice to be able to chat with her again.

Yesterday some of the commentators and members of Congress began to speak out about the financial crisis. Several of them pointed out that the Bush administration is once again pushing for a quick decision on a complicated issue. The administration doesn't want to submit a big written plan, they don't want discussion or debate. They just want a quick vote giving the Secretary of Treasury carte blanche. There is even a provision in the plan that states that nothing they do can be taken to court. Some folks pointed out last night that the Treasurer, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernecke, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank, are two of the appointed public servants that were in charge as the country sank into this debacle. Others pointed out that the government will hire Wall Street bigshots who were involved in the shaky financial practices to run the companies that the government takes over. In the recent past many folks were worried that President Bush might get us into a war with Iran before the end of his term in office. I never heard anyone warn us that he might leave us with the worst financial mess since The Depression. We'd better open the wrapper on this fish before we buy it. Something smells.

Mr. Dickie

Mr. Dickie