Surprise

I bought my first computer in 1985. It was a portable model weighing 47 pounds. It had hardly any memory (it really didn't need much then), no hard drive. But it did the job. It was far superior to a manual typewriter, and even electric ones. My current laptop, over five years old, and 6 pounds, is far superior to my ancient Zorba and can do many things I either don't need or don't know how. Or both.

In 2005 I received a beautiful picture of a lego model of a cathedral-like church which was almost unbelievable. However, when I went from the computer I had in 2005 (probably five years by then) to my current model, I have been unable to open the .jpg picture. An expert could do so, but not an amateur, me.

When I tried, here is what came up:

This is one line of 180 pages (not 180 lines but pages).

Try as I did, I couldn't see the beautiful, colorful lego church. I wanted to send it to my grandson who is into legos. This particular church was designed and built by a female computer programmer which took eighteen months to build.

I tried to find someone to show me how to open the picture. No luck. Then I went online to find a program which could open it. I found such a program, downloaded it onto my computer, but it didn't help. Instead, it loaded my computer with a lot of junk I didn't need and didn't want.

If you are not “computer literate,” keep on reading 'cuz that makes two of us. While trying to erase what I didn't want or need, I finally was partly successful. When going online (into a help section), I typed in words like “program, lego, help, erase” when all of a sudden up comes a picture of the lego church I was looking for. No, it wasn't the copy on my computer but its original, placed on the web @ 2001.

It had all kinds of other dimensions on how she did it, pictures of her efforts (and failures), getting the building to stand erect plus working around her inquisitive cats who actually did no damage. I received far more than I had originally.

The moral: don't give up too quickly.