I Hate Windows 8

     I hate Windows 8.  To be completely accurate; utterly precise; rigorously exact; categorically, unequivocally, expressly understood about this - I frickin' hate Windows 8.  It must be bad if it has an old lady using the almost f-word, right?  Yes, it's that bad, and more.
     I've often said to Mike that my timing is awful.  I always end up buying high and selling low.  It figured that when I needed a new computer, the operating system that had just appeared on the scene was Windows 8.
     So what has me all hot and bothered?  Let me begin.
   
     1. Windows 8 (actually Windows 8.1 - it has already undergone changes because everybody hates it) is a radical departure from any other Windows operating system you might have used. Nothing about it looks the same.  Somebody at Microsoft decided that desk top computers should look and act like smartphones and tablets.  When you start up your computer, you get a bunch of pictures (called tiles).  No icons to double click, no "Start" button, just tiles.  'Cause we all want apps, right?

Tiles

     
     2.  Wrong.  We want our old desktop.  There is a tile called "Desktop."  If you click the "Desktop" tile, you will be taken to something that resembles the old Windows start up screen.  This desktop is a fooler, though.  It won't do what your old desktop did.  At first there wasn't a "Start" button to bring up your programs.   Somebody at Microsoft must have heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth because in the 8.1 update, they added a so-called start button.  Can you see it on the illustration below, on the bottom, left corner?

Starting to feel familiar?

 Here's a bigger pic:

The new start button.

  
What happens when you click the new start button?  You get sent back to the tile page!
     3.  I started out by saying that Microsoft created Windows 8 to push the idea of using apps, like phones and tablets.  So, my new PC came with a touch screen.  Every time I sit down at my computer that greasy, smeared touch screen stares me in the face.  I don't like doggy nose prints on the car windows, I don't like flossing splatter on the bathroom mirror, and I especially don't like finger prints all over my monitor.
   
     So, what can you do if you don't like using tiles and you find trying to navigate the woefully inadequate excuse for the old desktop too complicated?  You can install a program that makes Windows 8 look and operate like the older versions of the Windows operating system.  One of these programs is called Classic Shell.  You can downgrade to Windows 7.  Really, would you? You can wait for the next Windows system to be released.  I hear they are going back to the tried and true desktop.  That's an admission that Windows 8 is a flop.  Maybe disgruntled Windows 8 users should get a free upgrade.
     Wait, there's another solution.  Buy a Mac.  Did you hear me, Bill Gates?  I'm piqued off, and I'm not gonna take this any more.   

Frederick, Maryland

     Mike and I spent an pleasant day in Frederick, Maryland.  We checked out the Canal Walk, poked around a huge antique and architectural salvage store, strolled around town, had lunch in one of the many restaurants, and visited the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.

Mike along the Canal Walk.  Check out the big fish in the water.

I couldn't resist pretending to grab the window sill in this trompe l'oeil painting.

Is it going to rain?

Gee, not my best angle.  This fellow stands at the entrance to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.  He's there so you can take a Civil War selfie.  

          I wondered why we have a National Museum of Civil War Medicine.  I thought the so-called doctors of the era hacked off injured limbs without anesthetizing patients, and spread infection from soldier to soldier with their bloody, ungloved hands.  I had to revise those notions after viewing the museum's displays.  There were many developments in medicine around the time of the Civil War.  Some doctors had no formal training, but others attended medical school and served apprenticeships with established physicians.  Medical schools were springing up everywhere and medical theory was moving away from leeches and bleeding patients to other schools of thought - homeopathy being the fastest growing of the new philosophies.  Civil War MD's were quick studies who realized that bleeding a person who had already lost a large volume of blood was the wrong way to go.  The museum had pictures of some wounded soldiers who had plastic or reconstructive surgery, and the results were pretty good in some cases. Anesthesia was commonly used at the time of the Civil War, and 95% of patients received it.  So, biting the bullet was a fallacy.  And amputations were the usual course of treatment for wounded extremities, not because doctors were unskilled, but because the minié ball ammunition used by soldiers shattered bones into so many pieces that removal of the limb was the only option.
     Museum displays bring to attention the diversity among people fighting this war.  It wasn't just that Afro-Americans joined up to fight for the Union side.  Children fought the war on both sides, if not as soldiers then as musicians.  Women, both black and white worked as nurses.  Some women were spies.  There were even women who served as soldiers without ever being discovered as transvestites.  One veteran soldier lived out her life, collecting a Civil War pension, and it wasn't discovered that she was a woman until after she died.
     The sheer number of Civil War dead lead to advancement in embalming methods and the development of mortuary science as a profession.  Undertakers set up shop near battle sites and field hospitals.  The dead had to be embalmed so the bodies would not decompose before they were shipped back to relatives.
     So all of the above is interesting and only slightly gruesome.  You get the point of the museum when you come to the final exhibit.  It's a display of modern military medicine.  The system of treating and evacuating military casualties today is the same as it was during the Civil War.  The Letterman Plan, developed by Dr. Jonathan Letterman, director of the Army of the Potomac in 1862 and 1863, included first aid stations at the front lines, mobile field hospitals, an ambulance corp, and use of the principles of triage for sorting out the injured.  Medical treatments have improved in the last 150 years, but no one has come up with anything better than the Letterman Plan.
     George Wunderlich is the Executive Director of the Museum of Civil War Medicine.  Check out his video:

              

National Watch and Clock Museum, Columbia, Pennsylvania

     I like learning new things - if it's not too difficult, or complicated, or technical.  I guess you could say I'm into lite learning.  Lite learning is the purpose of class trips, equal parts fun and education.  The National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pennsylvania is the perfect class trip - or senior outing.  http://www.nawcc.org/index.php/museum
     The first thing I learned on this outing was a new word - horology.  Horology is the study and measurement of time and the art of making clocks and watches.  Humans first measured time with sun dials (for daily measurements) and with huge monuments (like Stonehenge) for seasonal measurements.  Now we use atomic clocks.  Here's a good article that covers most of what the museum presents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices 

The museum has a big collection of long case clocks.  They are also called tall case clocks or just tall clocks; however, most of us call them grandfather clocks.  

Clocks got small enough to put on the wall.

Or on the table.  Eventually, time pieces got small enough to wear on the wrist.  The museum has an extensive pocket watch and wrist watch display, but I didn't get into that in this post.  

Telling time at sea was more difficult than telling time on land until the development of marine chronometers.  

Here is a nice display of car clocks.

Europeans developed a round clock face, but Asians developed pillar clocks called Shaku-dokei.  The passage of time was read from top to bottom, and the hour markings were unequal.  Evidently, some hours of the day deserved more space on the pillar - hmmm, maybe cocktail hour?

These novelty clocks are called Pendulettes.  The cases are made from wood dust and resin.  The politically incorrect minstrel singer (second row up from the bottom, second clock from the left) was a sign of the times when this clock was manufactured.  

More novelty clocks.  These are rolling eye clocks.  The right eye marked the hour, and the left eye marked the minute.

Another novelty clock, the mystery clock.  These clocks are called mystery clocks or impossible clocks because the hands float on the glass with seemingly no mechanism to propel their movement around the dial.  The first mystery clocks were invented by a Frenchman named Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin.  Robert-Houdin was a clock maker and a magician.  Ehrich Weiss took the stage name Harry Houdini to honor Robert-Houdin, whom Harry Houdini considered to be "the father of modern magic."  Here's an article about how mystery clocks work -
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/clocks-watches/mystery-clock.htm

Mike is standing in front of an astronomical clock.  Astronomical clocks show the time of day as well as astronomical information such as the position of the sun, moon, and constellations of the zodiac.  Pennsylvanian, Stephen Engle, spent twenty years of his spare time building this clock, completing it in the 1870's.  This clock was more for entertainment than accurate time keeping.  During the course of an hour, the clock played hymns and patriotic songs while Jesus, Satan, the disciples, Father Time, and even Molly Pitcher popped out of the doors surrounding the clock face.  The clock was exhibited all over the United States until the 1950's when it disappeared.  It turned up in upstate New York in 1983 and came to the museum a couple of years later.  

     My big take away from this museum visit was the explanation for how we got the four time zones - Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific.  Before time zones, every town in the United States operated on it's own time based on high noon.  Everybody who had a watch set it to 12:00 when the sun was directly overhead.  We had Hainesport time, Philadelphia time, and Lancaster time.  This didn't present a big problem when people walked or rode on horseback from place to place, but it created a mess when people began traveling  with lightening speed - on trains.   In order for everyone to be on the same schedule, the U.S. and Canadian railroads instituted standard time in time zones in 1883.  The railroad's system became law with the passage of the Standard Time Act of 1918.  Maybe I should have learned this in school, but, as they say, better late than never.  
             

Antique Automobile Club of America Museum

     Mike and I are not car nuts.  That didn't stop us from going to the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania.  They have done a fantastic job of presenting their collection of cars, buses, and Indian motor cycles.

I don't remember what kind of car this is, but I like it.

The Hershey Kiss Mobile sits at the entrance.

A 1905 Cadillac.  We've come a long way.

This is a 1913 Ford Model T delivery van.  Henry Ford recognized the need for commercial vehicles and began producing large numbers of vans in late 1912.

Frank Hartmaier left this 1929 Ford to the museum in his will.  Mr. Hartmaier bought this as a new car when he was 17 years old and he used it his whole life, until 2008.  He restored it four times.  The odometer stopped working at 400,000 miles.  The car cost $450 - Frank got his money's worth.

Drive-ins are part of the car culture.  This was a great display.  A docent warned us not to eat the plastic burgers, though.

You need a gas station for all those cars - another fantastic display.

This bus was loaned out to Hollywood.  It was used in the movie "Forest Gump" during the scene in Washington, D.C. when Forest waved goodbye to Jennie.

This is a 1965 Skat-Kitty minibike.  This little thing was street licensable.  It was popular with Shrine units for parading (probably popular with mummers, too).  You could purchase a Skat-Kitty with S & H Green Stamps or you could buy one at Sears.  The price was between $170 - $300.

   
     I didn't take any pictures of the Indian motorcycles.  They have about 25 motorcycles on display along with paintings of Indian cycles by David Uhl, a motorcyclist and painter.  They also run a movie, "The World's Fastest Indian," a mostly true story, starring Anthony Hopkins.  So, if you have the time, there's a movie included with the price of admission.  Enjoy the moment of victory -