I went to the farmers market and got fresh apples. Turned them into my first pie of the year. I love this time of year!

My mother in law is 92 today. She still lives alone but she doesn't get around very well and can't do most things for herself anymore. Somebody always comes over during the day to check on her and someone makes meals for her and they take turns spending the night there. The kids are having a turkey dinner for her today. I live two states away, so I really don't help out but I do bake cookies for her every now and then. I baked 2 batches of cookies Sunday and sent them UPS and they arrived Tuesday. Most of them are gone now but there will be a cake there today.

Happy birthday Ma.

What I did.

I informed the buyer that I had no need for the lens as I have already bought a replacement for it. I suggested he sell it and gave him a link to an ebay auction that closed yesterday in which that lens sold for substantially more than I charged him. He replied and thanked me for the ebay link and said it wasn't my fault, that he should have researched it further than he did.

I recently sold a camera lens on the internet, from a photo web site. The guy who bought it is not satisfied with it, he says it's a "little soft". The condition of the lens is like new and it works the way it did when it came out of the box. The lens is somewhat soft, that is the reason why I decided to replace it. The lens I replaced it with is sharper but it cost almost 3 times what that lens cost. When it comes to lenses you pretty much get what you pay for and pay for what you get. Now he is asking me to take the lens back. The lens is not defective, he simply is not satisfied with it. What would you do?

(a) Read the f*cking instructions
(b) Install the drivers
(c) Have a beer while savoring the victory

Thank you Juicy for your sage advice!

The old puter can now copy music and data from a cd, play the music back and play a dvd. Still can't resolve the problem of getting the cd burner to work, but that was a problem i had before so it's probably a defect in the hardware.

I got a new puter a couple of weeks ago so I have been busy with setting it up and learning the new features. As a result, I have spent very little time on NN these past couple of weeks.

I have a buyer for my old puter but it's essential to me to remove all my old data from the old one first. I trust the guy I'm selling it to but I don't want him to be able to retrieve my NN pics. Also, I don't want any subsequent user to be able to retrieve personal data about me. Deleting files and formating doesn't actually erase the data. So, I found a program that literally writes over all the data on the hard drive. Now the problem; after running the program the os is also erased. So I re-installed everything from the backup disks that came with the puter. But, it's obvious that some things are just not there. Do they install stuff at the factory that they don't give back up disks for? My main concern is the puter is unable to play cd's or dvd's because it's missing a dvd decoder and a "sound device". It makes me wonder what else might be missing.

That is what I want to know. I used to have a lawn service cut my grass. The price was reasonable and the crew did a very good job. There was only one problem; the billing. One year I got 3 bills throughout the cutting season and the final bill came in December. The next year pretty much the same except the final bill came the following February. Last year I received only one bill, which came in June and covered the remainder of the previous year and through May of that year.

This spring, I decided I would cut the grass myself and called the guy and cancelled. No mention was made of the bill although I knew I still owed. In the past when I complained about not receiving a bill he seemed rather unconcerned and mumbled something about a "new billing system" and it would be comming soon.

The bill for last year finally arrived yesterday. Except it is wrong. He included the part I paid last June as well as for services this year, which there were none. Now I have to go rattle his cage, grrrrrr!

But, this begs the question, how can you run a small business without timely collection of moneys owed to you? He had to pay his crews and cover other expenses in a timely manner.

I have never seen a white or black duck before. What are the odds of seeing them both together?

A couple more butterfly pics.

This isn't the best butterfly pic I have ever taken, but they are difficult subjects. The little buggers don't cooperate too much.