EUREKA ! ! !

Two things:

1. Several sister bloggers are participating in posting old pics of themselves, especially ones from the 70's and 80's where they have BIG hair, LOL. Well, this is my Trumann, Arkansas, THS graduation pic, 1982, and this is about as big as my hair got. Sorry it's so dark, but I was tanned from chopping cotton all that summer for spending money for senior stuff and to help out Mom and Dad. Dad's plant closed in June of that year, after he'd worked over 46 years there. Plus, the pic is 24 years old, too, and is dark with age. Ouch, that hurt!! Which leads me to #2.

2. I have lamented, bewailed, moaned, wished and coveted concerning the fact that I didn't have a working scanner. My pastor and his wife recently upgraded their puter from Windows 98 to Windows ME, and their copier/scanner was no longer compatible with the WinME, so they asked me if I would like (!?!) to have their old one. I practically drooled as I politely said, "Yes, Please, and Thank You." Oh, Happy Day ! ! Or so I thought. Problem. Large, insurmountable problem. The scanner has to hook up to the printer to work properly. I have only a USB port on my printer, and the scanner has the long 16 or however many pin connecter. Bummer. But Wait ! There IS a free 16 pin slot open on the computer. Thinking I had nothing to lose by trying, I hooked it up, and Lo and Behold, it worked ! Well, hold the applause, because I discovered only parts of the equipment worked. The copier worked fine, but the scanner wouldn't scan. At all. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Sniff, sniff.............Sob........Waaaaahhhhhhhh.....................I was heartbroken. Mildly disappointed, too ! Oh, well, I was better off than before, at least now I had a working copier.

Then, today, I was following up on a tip that Mike shared with me about taking digital pics of my photos to use on my blog. He can do that, and does a very good job at it, too, as you can see on his blog by clicking the Mike link above. I, however, haven't been having much luck with it. I tried taking a couple of pics that way, but they were either too light or too dark. Too blurry. Too.........just not good. Some were just....Eh.... So I was just fiddling with my Microsoft PictureIt 99 program that my Handsome BIL Johnny and my Lovely Sister Donna gave me, and I had one of those Epiphany thingies. A lightbulb lit up ! Fireworks went off ! Birds sang ! The World became a better place for all mankind ! World peace may even now be breaking out all over the globe, folks ! My PictureIt program has a menu with how you want to acquire pictures, and, Oh, Sweet Mercy!--There is a place to scan in pictures. Drumroll, please................Just on a whim, I clicked on it, and it asked which scanner I wanted to use to scan with. Not having anything to lose again, I selected the model I have hooked up. It didn't throw up an error window. Now, I am really getting excited ! I put that graduation pic on there and proceeded as directed. And it worked ! ! Halelujiah, it scanned ! I have joined the Scanning Band, oh, yes, I have ! Now I just have to work on fine-tuning the contrast, sizing, cropping, etc. I was so tickled with the first one of my graduation pic, I just stopped right where I was to post this. Hopefully, I will be able to post many more pics on the blog now that I have a working scanner. I may even get adventurous enough to post some pics on one of the photo hosts and make a link to it, like I have seen several other do. In the meantime, I will be playing with my newly discovered scanner. :)