Two days ago I began backing up all of my pictures to Google Backup.  After a bit I went into Google Photos and the first picture displayed was of my cousin in Ohio.  I was positive that she had been alone in this photograph but now there was another man in it.  Who? What?!  Do I have a virus?

There were more and more pictures like this and then I noticed these pictures had been renamed with APRILFOOLS added to the original name.  A web search led to the discovery that Google was the culprit and had done something similar last year.  All day long yesterday additional pictures appeared with this man who I learned is David Hasselhoff, an actor. 

Here you go with just a sampling of pictures with David:

I think David likes Lauren because many of the pictures are with her. On the right is my niece.

Take a look at where the woman’s arm is holding up David.

The party pooper is not in costume next to me at a Fasching party in Germany.

David even went to Austria and horned himself in between my grandmother, cousin, and aunt. My great aunt Lilli is only slightly amused.

Here he is with my two brothers, me, and my cousin in Heidelberg. He’s perplexed at why we kids  dressed up so much back in the 50’s.  

Making fun of me shooting at targets in Heidelberg. Boy was he surprised when I won a stuffed toy for toddler Lauren who is sitting on the counter. 

Telling me that Steve needs some serious computer help.

Worried that Lauren is going to drop her new puppy.

So afraid that Lauren is going to fall into the creek if she takes one step back.

Trying to tell my niece that he is a better catch than her new hubby.

Watching a Denver Broncos football game with my brother Patrick.

Speechless at the beautiful Schonbrunn Castle in Vienna.

Sneaking up behind my niece and late sister Kathy.

Earlier in the day, only David was in this photo with Lauren.  Towards evening, his twin showed up. This obsession with her tells me that I had better get into “helicopter mom” mode.

He and his twin managed to sneak into Tulip to go camping with mom and are telling me and Steve to butt out.

Lauuurrrren, don’t turn up that volume.

Oh my gawd, this baby Lauren is sooooo cute I can hardly stand it

I researched cameras for three months, spending several hundred hours reading review after review including customer reviews on Amazon.  One of my favorite sites is http://www.dkamera.de/testbericht/bildqualitaet.html to compare output between two cameras that you select.  This site is German but you only need to open the scroll down window to input the camera models and whether you want to see JPEG or RAW test photo’s.

My list was narrowed down to three:  Canon 50D, Nikon D90, and Pentax K-7.  I went back and forth with these three and changed my mind constantly.  The plusses and minuses of each kept offsetting each other.  I wanted to like the Pentax K-7 because of the advanced features and the compact magnesium alloy body, but it always fell short in image quality in the reviews; namely high ISO noise.  I also wanted to settle on the Canon because I have some old Canon lenses, but when I saw one in a store and picked it up, it was just too bulky for my hands.   That left the Nikon D90.



However, I went to Costco and happened to see this model, the D5000.  So I went home and research revealed it has the same components as the D90 and the exact same image quality.  It lacks the better LCD and doesn’t have Depth of Field Preview but is several hundred dollars less.  I didn’t get it at Costco though.  There are better prices elsewhere.

So yesterday I went to Manitou Springs to take pictures to show you our beautiful town.  Not one single photo turned out because I forgot to change the settings from playing around with it the night before (ISO 3200 and incandescent white balance). All the pictures were colored blue and ruined.  The picture above was taken with my old camera.  It will be nice when I learn the new camera well enough that finding and changing settings is automatic.
After note:  A week after buying this camera I traded in the 18-55mm lens at a camera shop for a used 18-200mm lens.   My old camera is a super zoom and 18-55 was very limiting.