What a nice memory of valentine's day. I remember buying the boxes of valentines for school. posieh said: "Mom and Dad had proclaimed we needed to be nice and considerate and give each classmate a Valentine, even though we didn't especially like them.I" I was of the same sentiment as your parents so we bought enough for everyone. An aside,I figured that since this was a public school activity every one should be included.

Yep, all I do is pop it in and go but let me warn you, I have an Olympus camera that will not take anything larger than a 512mb card so make certain *before* you get to the wedding that A) it is the correct type of card for your camera B) that your camera will accept the 2G size. But over and above everything else, have a great time at the wedding (which of course would be difficult if your camera won't take pictures.) Jodi-

When you remove a memory card from a camera and put it into a reader, be very careful not to perform any operation that 'writes back' to the card. For example, you may have opened an image into photoshop or MicroSoft's photo viewer and made some minor adjustments. When you went to delete the image, the software asks, "Do you want to save?" If you answer, "Yes", the image gets written back to the card and this may spoil its propertiary format. When this happens, the only solution is to re-format the card and loose all images on it. You may have to, with the card in the camera, delete all images before it will re-format. If the card is so messed up that the camera's software will not touch it, try this: Put the card in the external card reader and delete all images, then see if the camera will re-format the card. Make sure there are no files ledt on the card set to 'read only'. Scrapeing the gold plated contacts is not recommended for two reason: Typical gold plating for this kind of application is about 5 microms thick. Any thinner, and you would be able to see through the plating. Scratching it rubs through the plating and may carry embedded comtaminants to the contacts in the camera. The secomd problem is static discharge. Minute static charges impressed on the contacts can ruin the card. The best policy is do not touch the contacts. By the way, I also use an external card reader to extract images from the card. I copy the images to a hard drive or other storage device and for the lack of a better term, call these my master copies. I do all my editing on copies from the 'master file', keeping the master copy intact and never witting back to it. Thus, if my edit gets messed up, I merely get another copy and play with it. You may want to consider setting the master copy to 'read only'.

Dot & Jannie ~ sweet stories ~ made me smile! This is the first Mother's Day without my sweet little Mother. One of my last memories of her was last Mothers Day. Mom and Dad went into assisted living a few years ago in Las Vegas where they retired. My Mom started running away after 6 mos or so and they were both moved into memory care at the same facility. Daddy didn't have to go in there but he said he was married to her for 68 years and was not going to leave her. God Bless him. Anyway, my friend and I went to visit for Mother's Day weekend and we were taking them out for brunch at the golf course clubhouse where they used to live (their favorite place.) Mom's dementia had progressed to where she rarely said anything but maybe a word or two now and then....which never really made any sense. As we were driving over there, I was sitting in the backseat with my Mom (who by the way was very tiny, 63 lbs, and NEVER swore ~ I still have a chip in my front tooth from where she backhanded me with her diamond ring when I attemped to swear at a driver who had just cut me off. I was 37 yrs old LOL) I was cuddling her and loving on her and I told her where we were going and asked her if she was going to have something to eat with us? She rarely ate then too. She looked me dead in the eye and *winked* and said " kiss my @ss." OMG my friend and I roared although Dad was a bit upset that she swore. LOL My little mother ~ my little darlin~ I miss her!