We had an interesting thing happen yesterday.  Some of us girls met at the mall - 20 maybe? - here in Billings; just to have coffee and get to see each other and all.  So this lady came up to us and asked, "Who are you?  I've never seen a group of such powerful women."   !?!   Not exactly how I picture myself.  But then, if we have power, it's not ours.

It's snowing out, which is lovely.  :)  Not much yet; just enough to color everything white again.  And not too cold either - about 29.  Which is good and bad: the bad half is that everything will melt and then freeze tonight and be horrible tomorrow.  Thankfully, I don't think anyone needs to go anywhere early in the morning.  

We got all the plans for special meetings this morning, and, shocker of shockers, I'm only speaking twice the whole rounds!  I had to look twice!  

Mom and Dad are off to Peru.  I called them last night and they were planning to leave this morning at 8.  They fly to Houston, then to Miami, then Peru.  They will arrive at 5 am tomorrow.  Bright and early!

Mac Update:  I like.  I like.  I will probably be reporting all my nits, but that's because they are mostly so small that I don't have anything else to complain about!  And after all, this is a report; I have to say SOMEthing.  So.  Today's gripes:  The CD player is very noisy when it plays.  VERY noisy.  :(  It whirs so loudly.  

Gripe #2:  I can't find where to see (I don't know if it exists to find, even) my internet status.  I can see that it says I'm connected, but not the strength of the signal or if it's processing anything or...  That was very useful, being able to see if any in or out-bound packets were moving, then I knew if the signal was working or not.

All for now, it's lunch time.

I GOT IT!!!!

It's little and white and has this apple icon on the back that lights up when you turn it on.  I'm not sure about that... I may need to make a patch to cover it up.  Of course, it's rather pointless to try and hide that I've got it on.  ;)  But it might be nice not to have extra light beaming out the back if I'm trying to use it whilst other peoples are napping.

Good things:  The keyboard is not too small.  I was a little worried about this since I had to down-size in order to be able to afford computer.  I like how it types.  Nice clicky-crisp keys.  The whole thing is white!  This is cool in one way and not-so-cool in another way.  Cool half is it looks really nice.  Not-so-cool half is my mother's voice in my brain saying, 'White things show ALL the dirt!'  

I am rather pleased, impressed, etc. by the number of things that work the same as they did on a PC.  One small for instance that I use a lot:  Shift Tab to go backwards.  Of course, there's no reason it should be different - but neither did it necessarily have to be the same.  I mean, after all, anyone who builds a computer with only one mouse button might be expected to do /anything/.  

The pictures are prettier.  Well, not sure that's the right word, but it comes with a lot of very nice screensavers installed.  Of course, it could just be that I think they are so neat because they are different from Microsoft's, which I have seen for so many years now as to consider boring.  Perhaps there are ancient Mac users out there for whom these nifty pictures are also boring.

The weird/confusing/not so good things:

I can't find any word processing program.  I am assured by everyone I have talked to so far (2 people) that there IS one, but I have no clue where.

I can't figure out my wireless deal.  I am connected, obviously, but I don't know where on earth it says so, or where it tells the name of the network, or the strength of the signal or anything like that.  If it even does... I wouldn't even know I was connected if I hadn't opened my browser out of sheer curiosity.  There was no 'You Are Connected' msg.  No little icon (that I can find) that is blinking at me with a signal.  Nuffink.  I opened this thing called Airport which the manual told me was the wireless manager; but it insists that there are no base somethings to be found.  I am not sure what a base whatever it is actually is, but I thought perhaps it meant hotspot. ??  Anyways, I apparently am connected to some ghost network.  :)

MacSword is nowhere NEAR as good as e-sword.  I am either going to have to buy Parallels after all (which I still may end up doing, for my music programs); or see if I can find a different bible program that is better.

This is all for now.  So far, we are coming down on the side of This Is Really Cool.  Mostly, I think, the problems are from total non-exposure, and should resolve themselves as I continue to doodle around.

I really need to take the time to get some pictures up on here. It is gorgeous out! For those of you who don't know this area of Montana, we are nestled right up against the mountains. The foothills rise straight out of the pasture behind the house here. They are covered with pines, and beyond them are the Missions, with their snow-covered peaks. Right now, we've got about 6 inches of snow - so everything looks like a postcard.

The exciting news of the moment (to me!) is that I'm getting a new laptop - and it's going to be a Mac! My HP (which I have loved... mostly) died and to fix it would cost over half the price of just getting a new one. And I am annoyed with Microsoft and everyone who sells it, and finally did enough reading to convince me I could survive in a Windows world with an Apple.
So now I spend my time hovering (metaphorically) by the door eagerly waiting its arrival!

I hope you all have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Plans! I'm not going to be eating cold soup from a can while sitting under a bridge on cardboard!
Ok, so that was never a danger. ;) But now I know what all is happening with the cars and the plans and Sandy and my rides and all. So I could make plans as to where to really spend Thanksgiving. Leroy and Lindy had invited me, so I will be there for about a week, I think. Maybe a little longer, we'll see. I'm looking forward to getting to help cook stuff, wander through the woods and visit the horses, laze about in the hottub...

Other exciting stuff: Mom and Dad leave the 29th for Peru! Mom is getting excited - I'm getting excited for them! You can probably tell this by how I used the word 'exite' three times in the past two sentences. ;) I wish I could go too. Maybe I'll hide out in their suitcase. :D

We're listening to a tape about the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949. I find it rather ironic that back then such great expense and effort was gone to to put out /any/ fire, whether it was near habitation or not; while now people are thinking that letting the fires burn some would be better and cut down on worse fires in the future. Now we are in the future that, possibly, if back then some fires had been let to burn, we might be better off.
I'm not sure that preceding sentence actually made any sense outside of my brain.

We snuck over the border into Idaho last week, and had a bit of a party with our neighbors! Jenith made curry, and, oh, was it ever good. MMmmmmmmmMM. I'm getting hungry again just thinking about it.

Oh, and the larch/tamarack mystery has been solved. Tamaracks are also known as Western Larch... I'm sure you're all relieved to hear this.

Beyond that? The main breaking news is just that. My laptop is broked. :( I have taken it carefully to the doctor and left it there for a (hopefully!) brief hospital stay. Having not heard anything yet, I am unsure if my hope is going to be fulfilled or not. Alas. A laptopless life is a hard one.