A friend gave me an "action" (i'm hoping that's the right word) and I think I installed it, but I don't know how to run it even if I did install it right.  Any help here?  I'm sure it's something simple and I'm just making it harder than what it is.

Hey Michael, are you getting to the point where a return visit might be a benefit?

Make sure you have it in the actions folder, then in the actions pallet, click on the little arrow at the top right, and you'll see Load Actions.  Click on that, load your action.

Making sure it's in the right folder is the hardest part, but as long as you can find it when you click on Load Actions, you should be good to go.

Double click on the action and then in PS go to Window/Actions in order to see the Actions Palette and there will be the action/s. Open a picture and hit Play in the Actions Palette.

you can try F9 as a shortcut to pull up the action menu