Slides�

2003-10-04

Been freakin' busy. Today we participated in the Great American Pastime, shopping. Us about a million others. Spouse decided that he wanted a CD cabinet found at the wonderful Ikea. We went out to the one closest to us. Gone. We eventually tracked down the next closest location and got him his cabinet. And me a new chair because the pneumatics in the one I'm using are blown out and I feel like a five-year-old. My chin is about at desk-top level.

I finally started the slide scanning project. So far I've gone through my grandmother's slides and half of one of my dad's slide carousels.

I'm totally convinced that this project, while it won't turn out as well as I hoped (slide scanner isn't that great) is going to be totaly worth the effort.

Took me a bit to work out the software. One of the buttons on the front of the scanner wants to make a 'Memories Disk'. Complete with music. Yech. And no, I didn't read the instructions. If I can't figure out how to use it by looking at the menus, it's crappy software. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I feel like I'm kind of living my childhood over again. My dad didn't show the family slides at every opportunity, but I remember seeing most of these at least a few times. I wonder how many of my happy memories are photographs? No way to know. Sure as heck does reinforce the ones that I know are mine.

It's going to take me months to go through them all. I find my self unable to not scan most of them. It's not going to cost me anything except the CD to record them on. I don't care if don't know who is in a picture. I'd rather scan it than let the film go to dust without being able to bring at least some of it back.

Several times so far I've found myself saying "I can't tell who that person is." Only to find out that it was myself.

I'm coming to the realization that I'm extremely grateful to my dad for taking all of these pictures. I can't live my childhood over again, but right now I'm taking a walk through some of my most pleasant memories. There are things that I can see now as an adult that I didn't see when I lived these times, or when I saw the slides as a child.

I never thought about it before, but I'm thinking that's why photos have become so important to me. It gives other people a glimpse of the world through another set of eyes.

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