Oh Google, you're going to make me drink

So the pics clearly are not fixed, or not reliably anyway. Strange that some of my Google Photos show just fine and some don't.

Anyway today I discovered that since Picasa is part of the Google family my Google Photos are available through there. Perhaps I can get Picasa to give me clear links to the photos which Google Photos won't.

Turns out that Picasa will indeed provide a clear link. Heres an example of what I'm talking about. Here's a picture of potatoes harvested from our garden:

Here's the link Picasa provides: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YCXP_OgIDJs/VdH5KfSZ3-I/AAAAAAAAAgc/thAfLdZJvqI/s800-Ic42/IMG_20150817_100726153.jpg

Notice how it ends in "IMG_20150817_100726153.jpg" this is what I refer to as a "clear link", meaning its an actual web path to the actual file residing on some server somewhere.

For the same image Google Photos provides: https://goo.gl/photos/A9nPix8cVc67MDn49
This is not a clear link, it takes you to a web page, not the picture. I got that using the "share" link in the photo, the alternative is what I did with Picasa, right click on the image and choose "Copy image address" which is something it would appear Google doesn't want you to do because sometimes you need to right click two, three or four times before you can get that option. Anyway the link it provides looks like this: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/NJEes5mtUxLWrPHn0tAbFdGnUw0pdccXbdWnFOnqN8Nx9XhW_sWwAeOEEQOGMqU8DV9IGkld4pmXOlnGZ8w39ZBi0Dn_gfIKUd-wsQd8oPBPYxSPWMRFJKDz7XhQd9hSlHjdMLv815pEMRze7ZgU-imMMZ5uimU4GAeMf-yGtrsRyW4FdRYsuyeMKLvA28alg_gEAucDbhIOM_JkfEzdu8RbMTCux3CqtqT_R5myHkBDq04XQWkHOqL1LvwUKcWF0a-xWJZ49NCwKyGTktf7IiFJTbFGofe23v7-vDSJj6yaeovmv-Q4pf-nQ5m_8qyn7Manx0h52lel7IrQart3uLi52INL6jEfn4XQYUFns-CZE5YoL_1xaGQBcl11CK5p4H9wYGkD3k_LTgJ2d3Ww5QJG12rMZRmq1VlIHafT91f3G5aqT7uqPZ9lyxW2QXCGSdJqfX9sS66CsTl2qc9mvxcmCbd8AE5LmKYGsrppdVu4bvHlI4tzUNANew2ggB_DayxAU532I_Kg3VP6NJB2LA-0zma5Dqf6QMDWjUWP0TDsgzb_7Z-N4silHcjljJyyCm83=w1216-h2158-no

which is sort of a direct link in that it takes you directly to the photo but it isn't a clear link because theres no file name in it. Because theres no file name its useless for posting pictures on webpages and I think this is the reason Blogger has been having a hard time with it. Interestingly my wick lantern post hasn't had half the issues some of the others have and I don't know why...

Anyway hollar at me if you can see the pictures on the first couple posts below, if it doesn't work this time I'll go back to Photobucket. PB has a pretty good system for providing clear links but their web page is soooo sloooow it takes forever to work with. I think they do this so you'll click on the ads, but thats not working for me at all...