MacEvangelist

Perhaps 15-20 years ago, during my post-stroke employ at the Mighty Mezz, I befriended a guy named Rob Hartle.
Rob is the MacEvangelist. He was trumpeting the wonders of Apple Macintosh personal computers, compared to Windows PCs.
Rob was a graphic-designer at the Messenger, a creator of display ads.
More than anything he was extremely savvy with computers.
At that time my wife and I had a humble Windows 386 PC, our first personal-computer.
Another Messenger graphic-designer named Lance Gardner was also telling how superior Apple computers were.
I began to think about replacing our 386 with a MAC.
It also happened about that time the Messenger was about to institute full computerization = generating pages in a computer instead of doing paste-up.
The Messenger was only somewhat computerized. Stuff got entered into a gigantic air-conditioned mainframe which spit out galleys.
Those galleys got pasted to full-size cardboard page-dummies, which upon completion were photographed to make printing-plates.
Full computerization took out the page-dummies. Plate negatives were sent directly from computer to image-setter.
The Messenger considered the Windows platform too, but decided on Apple because most image-setters were Macintosh based.
A PC had to translate to work a MAC-based image-setter. We already had one, and it liked to freeze. —Delaying publication.
Plus all-of-a-sudden Apple was selling desktop iMacs for peanuts.
Add Gardner and the MacEvangelist to the Messenger’s going Apple, and I decided to get an Apple myself.
A beige G3 desktop.
My siblings weighed in:
Apple was the Devil incarnate. Jesus used a PC. “Them Apples are just toys!” I was told.
I was rebellious and stupid.
It was the same sorry sing-song my hyper-religious parents serenaded me with the whole time I grew up.
I am now on Apple number-three (the rig I’m using here), a MacBook Pro laptop.
The motherboard on my G3 lunched long ago, leading to my G4 tower.
My wife, now deceased, had been a computer programmer. She drove a heavy Windows laptop from home, telecommuting.
But I became used to driving my MAC. And at the Messenger, despite my previous stroke, I developed tricks to generate reams of copy, and save time.
“I don’t know what he’s doing, but this macro is saving me hours. Plus he got so he could do the website.”
“Beep-beep-beep-beep!” Somebody’s running my macro.
The badmouthing from my siblings continued. I suppose because I wouldn’t switch = kowtow to their vast superior knowledge.
I started writing a blog, and began digital photography. I found I could process digital photographs with my MAC — no more darkroom, and much more powerful.
It also allowed me to fiddle color photography, which Yellow Father (Kodak) didn’t allow.
So now I generate an annual train-calendar with my MacBook Pro, plus I often include art (pictures) with my blogs.
Rob moved on, and now lives in Syracuse. I e-mail him fairly often.
I blog a Monthly-Train-Calendar-Report, scanning my four train calendars to be part of the report.
I did one recently, and it had heavy moiré in the sky. Moiré is due to scanning-resolution (300 pixels-per-inch [ppi]) not being the same as printing resolution (dots-per-inch [dpi]). That conflict generates a pattern of waves — moiré — in the scanned image, visible in the sky in this case.
I tried “despeckle;” didn’t work — sometimes it does.
I decided to try a much higher scanning resolution, 1,200 ppi. It worked, but blew a lotta time. 1,200 ppi is also so big I didn’t have enough RAM to fiddle. Good grief; I got four gigs.
—So I shot Hartle an e-mail, and so began addition to my ‘pyooter-savvy.
“Use scanning ‘descreen,’” he said.
Never heard of it, but my scanner had it.
—Next question: My Photoshop-Elements “Clone” tool no longer works.
“Reset tools,” he fired back.
Boom-zoom! My clone tool works again, and it’s been years.
—Next question: “I don’t understand ‘unsharp-mask.’”
“All digital photos could use it,” he shot back.
Engage ‘pyooter waazoo: try it and see what happens. It’s making pictures crisper.
But ya gotta be careful: “unsharp-mask “ overdone can blow a picture off the planet. So I always avoided it.
Previously I edited color-balance with “color-variations” = very sloppy.
Individual color “levels,” red, green, and blue (RGB), work much better = more precise.
I don’t understand it, but what I see looks better.
“Unsharp-mask” pictures also look much better.
“So maybe I should come visit sometime.” Syracuse is about an hour east on the Thruway.
Into the fray! 73 years old, but still hot to increase my ‘pyooter-savvy.
“I won’t have nothin’ to do with computers,” I heard a guy bellow. “I let my wife do it.”
“Well I do,” I said. “For me computers are fun.”
I was at the Canandaigua YMCA the other morning, and two older gentlemen decried their boredom since retirement.
One was born in 1953; that’s nine years younger than me.
“You’re lucky,” my counselor says. “I see all too many retirees bored silly, nothing to do.
Yet you continue to chase trains, then process your train-pictures with your computer.
Plus you’re always writing blogs.”
I never watch TV. I fiddle my MacBook Pro instead. It’s nowhere near as off-putting as Oprah.
Rob is younger than me.
Yet bring it on, baby.

• The “Mighty Mezz” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, from where I retired over 11 years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26th, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• RE: “train-calendar” and “chasing trains.....” —I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2.