Futility

I'm trying.  I really am trying.  I'm just not having very much success.

I took many lovely pictures of my weekend in Santa Monica.  I walked the depth of the beach, from the boardwalk

 to the ocean.

 

I saw the original Hotel California

and Muscle Beach and the Boardwalk. 

I'd love to share more of the photographs, but technology is getting in my way.

 

Lenore the Lenovo Laptop served me admirably on my trip.  She was perfect for blogging in a comfy chair along the staircase at my hotel.

Now that I am home and trying to do more than email, now I am having issues.

 

 The salesman in Best Buy told me that Lenovo was IBM in the way that Acer swallowed up what was the remains of Gateway.  I took a moment while he was ringing up my purchase to mourn the demise of those cow boxes, and then moved on.  There was some minor instruction about shifting the screens and revealing other screens but he assured me that I would find it intuitive.

 

I stared.  I thought of my children, giggling at the thought of this new device, intuitive, and their mother all in the same sentence.  I was shown the on/off switch.  I was surprised that my inability to locate the most important button on the equipment didn't alert him to the possibility that I would find other features inaccessible. 

 

He offered me insurance, which I bought, and promised to replace Lenore if Best Buy couldn't fix what I'd broken.  It's an equal, one for one, guarantee.  I don't know how they make money on it, but I'm sure they do.  I would pay to have someone sit with me and explain the things I cannot fathom, but that option was not presented.

 

So, today, home from a wedding and my grandbaby, exhausted from the change in altitude and breathing airplane air, and readjusting to the time zone, I thought I would treat myself to editing the photos on my new toy.  Lenore was fully charged and ready to go.  My belly was full and my ice tea was at hand. 

 

I was stumped. 

 

The photos exist in a variety of places.  They originated on my phone.  I uploaded them to Dropbox, not realizing that Dropbox had automatically uploaded them, too.  Somehow, they were visible on Google+, which must be an automatic upload as well.  I think that they are in the Verizon Cloud, but I have no idea where that portal lies. 

 

There are times when I yearn for pen and paper and waiting at the 1-hour photo shop.

 

I want to move the pictures from one of those locations to a photo editing program on Lenore.  The Start screen has an intriguingly named CameraMan icon, and another icon announcing that it is the Camera Roll.   CameraMan will take my picture, but that is of no use to me right now. Camera Roll tells me that there are no photos in the file. 

 

I know.  I know.  I know.  I'm trying to get them there.

 

Lenore came with a newer version of Windows than that which I am used to on my old, desktop.  I know how to find My Pictures when I'm working here, at the desk, on the old unit.  I can't find it anywhere on Lenore.  I can open Dropbox and Google+ and see the photos there, but I have no idea how to select them and move them to a file on Lenore's hard drive.

 

Pencils and paper.... I'm yearning.......

 

I've played with swiping and adding apps and reading Help and none of it is useful.  I am frustrated and flummoxed and quite annoyed.  The only place with which my photos work seamlessly is Blogger, the platform I use to write to you.  They've added a way to upload photos directly from my phone, without going through another app.  I can't edit them, but I can upload ones which require no help.

 

I will work on it.  I will conquer it.  I might need some outside assistance, but I will get it done.  When?  That's another story entirely.