Digital Overload
Now I know where Sarah gets her curls from!That's me, in all my 2 year old glory. My Dad emailed me this picture yesterday after reading my post about Jason's birthday. He's been working on scanning all his slides from when we were kids, which got me to thinking about family history, pictures, and life today in a digital world.
I remember playing with the trays of slides in my parents' closet. They were great for stacking, making walls, playing with Little People on. I remember waiting impatiently at the top of the stairs Christmas morning while Dad went down to get the cameras ready and the sun gun turned on (did your Dad have a sun gun? You know, that blinding light that made it possible to film Super 8 in the house?) I remember poring through old photo albums and getting a kick out of my skinny Mom with her frosted hair and my Dad who could have passed for a member of the Bee Gees.
Dad had hair like the one in the middleIt started out innocently enough, we wanted to go digital because we were about to have a baby & we live far from family. We could email pictures! Terrific! Of course, back then everyone had dial-up internet & pictures took forever to upload and download. Besides, I had a baby to deal with who took up increasingly more time. Then we had another baby. I was pretty good there for a while about getting prints made, making backup copies on CD's, and keeping things organized. Before we had Sarah I think I even got the albums caught up. That was over 3 years ago. I stopped printing the pictures 2 years ago when I filled up an entire tub with ones that needed to go into albums.
We now have 2 digital cameras, and Evie has her own. I have backup copies on disk in a fire safe that I'm 3 years behind on. Some of the pictures are backed up on the basement server which is a complete dinosaur to access. Some of them are on my hard drive (which thankfully gets backed up regularly). And the first 18 months of Jason's life? Sitting on Matt's desk in a ZipLoc bag on the hard drive we need to have recovered. That was an expensive mistake.
Back in the spring we bought a digital camcorder. I have no idea how to do anything with the video. I guess I'm in trouble when THAT gets full. Luckily, we're not videophiles, and the only time the camcorder comes out is when there is a birthday (which happens a lot in the fall!) or at Christmas. I can just imagine what it will be like to look at them in a few years - because, as you can probably imagine, it's really noisy and chaotic here at Christmas and birthdays - EVERYONE wants to be RIGHT THERE to see what's going on. Maybe someday when I have a minute (or really, more like 10 hours) I can sit down and figure it out. Maybe.
For now, I just keep snapping pictures and occasionally videotaping. That way when I'm old and grey (well, old - I'm already headed towards grey - or rather, white) I can enjoy looking back at my kids fighting on tape and be horrified at all the yelling I did. And wonder where all the time went. Assuming I can figure out how to go back and look at everything.
That's what kids are for!
ReplyDeleteThat picture of you could totally be mistaken for one of Sarah...you two are identical at that age!
ReplyDeleteIt's hard in this day and age to remember to print off and then album your pics...I usually post mine to FB and at a later date will print them all out. I also have a photobucket account that stores most of Riley's birth to present pics.
First off, Sarah looks just like you did when you were little! Wow! Secondly, you just described me perfectly. I don't even know where to begin with my photos. I was good about scrapbooking and keeping up with the pictures until baby #2 was close to 2. After that, forget it. I don't even have the time to get the photos in a regular ol' album! My pictures are also stacked in a big tote, and I take hundreds more by the day. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteI used to be good at putting them on the computer and printing....lately?? not so much! Its such a chore!
ReplyDeleteHa ha - I used to OBSESS about printing out every digital picture and putting them in an album, and then I finally gave up when I only had 2 kids. We have thousands of pictures on our computer, and I would love to pick out our favorites (all 500 of them) to display somewhere.. . .yes, indeed, technology is overwhelming!
ReplyDeleteI can't BELIEVE how much your daughter looks like you in that photo!!!
Curls aren't the only thing Sarah got from you....seems like she got ALL your looks. That is so cool, and creepy ;)
ReplyDeletesarah IS you.
ReplyDeleteI have a solution- get a Mac and make movies- soooo easy!!!!
ReplyDeleteOf course I say that and I am about 3 years behind on making movies...oopps!
~Becca
Oh my goodness, this post is ME!! We got a digital camera and it all went to hell! I have the pics, but they're on disc, DVD and thumb drives!! Hardly any hard copies.
ReplyDeleteWe fried our computer hard drive once and THANK GOD CJ was able to recover those pics. I bawled for about 12 hours on that one. My 2nd baby's first day and whole life was on that! I learned my lesson then. Even though I don't have them stored in hard copy, I have them all backed up and backed up again! Well, except the one time I had about 2,000 shots on a thumb drive and when I plugged it in it erased everything. Gah! Then CJ had to look all those shots up on the discs I also use and put them on a new thumb drive. Yikes. Good thing I have back ups of back ups!
Wow, that was long. Anyway, I really wanted to say that when I opened my reader I saw that little blondie and I thought it WAS Sarah! : )
You're kids look exactly like you!
ReplyDeleteI'm so bad too! Last time I printed photos I had to do about 300...then I had to find an album...then I couldn't remember where I put the photos...then I lost the memory card...bring back film LOL! Getting old.
ReplyDeleteYou have just sent me into a state of panic!
ReplyDeleteI have always been ONTOP of my photo albums, chronologically ordered and labeled (I should of been a scrapbooker, but never had the time) BUT since the digital camera and 4th baby, I have lost my grip of any sense of control.
DO you know how lame I am. I have saved memory cards in a fireproof box....and just buy new ones for the cameras. I don't know how to get the videos off of them and what to put them on, and I am so behind on putting stuff on CDS and making positives I just buy new memory cards.
I suck.
And now I am panicked.
Maybe a New Years Resolution?? I gotta get through the holidays now!
We don't print out pictures anymore either.
ReplyDeleteI have them made into books once a year.
I agree with the others. Your kid looks like YOU!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWe also have a hard drive tha thas the first 4 months of kid #1 on it. I have hoever collected the digital photos from family that had copies. So it isn;t all gone :) We should actually get around to getting into that hard drive though.
Sarah looks just like you! That's crazy! What a cutie you were with your blonde curls! :)
ReplyDeleteI know exactly what you mean about going digital. I have so many pictures that are saved onto my computer...they've never been printed or saved to a cd. If something were to happen to my PC, I would be screwed. I was good for about the first year after Isaiah was born, then after that everything went down hill. I have good intentions. I just don't have good follow through.