Mixed blessing--New President! New computer (with bugs)! Incompatible software!

We finally got a new computer after months of agonizing. Yipee! I couldn't justify spending the money on an Apple, but instead got an HP with Vista. I'd heard some bad stories about Vista and, so far, I've found some justification to them. It took me several days to get a number of bugs worked out, which entailed sitting on the phone for hours with someone overseas and calling my computer-geek (sort of--sorry Kathy) sister numerous times in Texas. It certainly brought back memories of when I bought my first computer, a Dell, and almost went insane with technicians in India trying, by phone, to fix the problem of it not booting up. Even though I had bought an on-site insurance policy, they didn't send anybody out until I had practically torn the computer apart (along with my hair) and had a nervous breakdown. When someone finally came out a week or so later, they said it was the motherboard! I swore then and there I would never buy another Dell. Sadly, it looks as if HP has adopted the same lame business model and has outsourced their customer support. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if the support was efficient, but it wasn't. In between the language barriers and lack of technical knowledge, my efforts to get the latest problem resolved were futile. Luckily, once the internet connection came back on line (which compounded the problem), I found a forum which addressed the issue and fixed it myself. Now on to the next pressing concern, trying to replace my beloved Photoshop. It turns out my ancient Photoshop software is incompatible with Vista :-( and it's horribly expensive to replace (no upgrades possible according to Adobe.) I didn't realize how addicted I had become to it, but it's something that will have to be replaced. I'm hoping my searches on Ebay will yield something soon.

We did manage to squeeze in a little bit of relaxation over the weekend and went to the yearly camellia show at Leu Gardens. Leu Gardens is a large park with an established camellia garden, along with butterfly gardens, rose gardens and many other tropical plants. Every year gardeners bring their varieties of camellias for showing and judging and some of the varieties are quite stunning. We topped off the day at St. Luke's with a concert by the Orlando Concert Band. It was good to relax.

And even better is the hope that, with President Obama in office as of Tuesday, we can turn the page on the tragedy of the last eight years and begin the healing our country so desperately needs.