Just like on TV, right?

So, I'm a Mac owner.

As a retired engineer, this was a big, scary step for me. I took it not quite a year ago, after receiving multiple reassurances from friends that took the leap before me.

I went to the Apple store. I played on the fun ball chairs, and tested out all the different machines.

I fell in love with the 17" Mac Book Pro. I mean really, who wouldn't? It's a rockin' little machine with lightening fast processing, a big 'ole screen for all my (residual) spreadsheet needs and comes with the built in intuitiveness I've come to love about all things Apple. And as a bonus, once you own a Mac, you can laugh at all the fun commercials while sporting a knowing grin (my favorite is the computer cart). Macs rock.

Many of the super creative people I know - whether they're sewers, musicians, or even scrapbookers - seem to use a Mac. The more I learned, the more I fell in love. The transition was rocky for, oh, about 10 minutes (who knew two fingers on the trackpad opened the right click?!?!). I fell for my Mac. Hard.

Oh sure, the whole world still used a PC, but not me! I was FREE! I was liberated from spyware. Viruses? Never. I was part of the revolution against Bill and his wiley ways.

And then I ran into my first website that didn't support Safari. (Oh, for you PC users? Safari is to Mac as Internet Explorer is to PC. It'll be a question on the SATs soon, I'm sure!)

Oooh, no! What now? Enter Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is meant to mimic the way IE operates, thus glossing over 98% of the issues we liberated Mac users run into in the scary scary internet. Yay! Firefox! Firefox, you're my hero!

I then returned to my Mac loving ways.

Until today.

It started out simple enough. All I wanted to do was upload some photos to an online processing facility. Had it been one or two, I would have never noticed what an ordeal it would be!

But I had 226.

Do you know now long it takes to add 226 photos to an online processor?!?! Yeah, naptime? Gone. And snacktime, too, for those keeping track.

A few emails back and forth, including my refusal to purchase Parallel for $80 (um, pay $80 to basically run Windows on my Mac? No thanks!!!), and I realized. I've hit my first roadblock in my blissful MacLand.

I know I had other options. None of them were very appealing to me.

Instead, I loaded up my flashdrive and used Hubby's PC. I admitted defeat. Maybe things in MacLand aren't quite as they appear on TV.

But the commercials? Yeah, they're still funny................