Sardines, laptops, magic mushrooms, and mice

I thought that today would be the day. I thought it’d be the day that I’d be able to use my new laptop to write a post and to work on my photos in the new Photoshop program I have. But, alas, it is not.

I bought a new laptop recently but I’ve been putting off getting it set up.

There’s just so much, you know, and it all gives me such a headache. It’s why I get someone really computer-savvy to help me with it. At school today we got Photoshop CS5 loaded into it and then had to figure out how to get the actions and brushes from the old version into the new version. And while we were in there, CS5 was looking a little scary to me.

But I’m not a wimp.

After bringing it home and setting it up, complications ensued which were all solved but one. It wasn’t until the new laptop wouldn’t recognize my external hard drive (where I store all my photos) that I gave up. Try as I might, I couldn’t figure it out, so I called it a day and turned on the old laptop.

And now I am sitting here with my faithful old friend where the Photoshop is familiar and the keyboard is soft and sweet. And I don’t care that I can’t read any of the letters.

I am going to get this all figured out but until then, here’s a few more glimpses from Maine for you. I opened up the album this afternoon and looked at the water just to calm down.

One morning, we drove to the peninsula across from us and hiked up Pigeon Hill. It was a nice little walk and a we had a pretty decent view at the top.

We started down and saw some beautiful birds hanging out together at the top of a dead tree. They were cedar waxwings! I changed lenses and this was as close as I could get with the 70-300mm.

They look like fun guys, don’t they?

Speaking of which.

This little mushroom is half-eaten and you can see the little critter bites, probably from a mouse. I wonder what would happen if a mouse nibbled on one of these and it happened to be a magic mushroom.

Maybe then he would see a face in the rocks.

Or maybe a giant cut-out of a fisherman holding a can of sardines.

I took this in Prospect Harbor, home of Beach Cliff sardines, the last sardine cannery in the United States. They closed their doors just this past April. Maine was once the center of the thriving sardine industry which began in the 1870’s and reached its heydey in the 1950’s.

But we were talking about mice, weren’t we? Or was it computers or birds? Anyway, here’s a question for you:

Have you ever eaten sardines? And if so, did you like them?

Hey, it’s not too late to enter my Giveaway, especially if you’re reading this before 6 PM on Friday, Aug. 13.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .