Dig, Dig, Digitize!
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2005
I spent much of the day working with pictures. Family, church, Christmas, Las Vegas, Disney, scenery, animals, events... snipets of our lives on this planet. Vignettes of the Things we've done and places we've been. Some are of interest to a select few, others are of great quality and would be pleasing to any eye. I tend to hold on to them dearly, especially now.
I have always treasured family keepsakes, pictures and memorabilia. In a big family, that stuff can pile up fast. Vowing to sort it all into albums, I packed it boxes and stored it in a metal storage building near our newly built retirement house in Pagosa Springs, CO... where the snow comes in doses of 10-12 inches at a time.
You guessed it, the building collapsed. Indeed, since we lived and worked six hours away, we didn't discover this sad event until several snowfalls later. Richard and a friend dug down to the fallen building and carefully brought the crushed and frozen boxes in. We hoped thawing and drying them out would leave us with a salvagable result. Wrong!
Much irreplacible treasure was lost. Now, as I go through the remaining boxes (the ones that never made it to Pagosa) I find that old color photos are badly degraded, turning orange. Old documents, printed on acid-laden paper, are crumbling to dust... I need to work fast and get this all digitized, backed up and shared with others.
It's a daunting chore and I often get sidetracked as I sit and reminisce about old times and old people. It can eat up a day before you know it... but I don't regret that. I'll dust and clean tomorrow.
For now, I'll leave you with this: God has chosen to place you and me in the digital era. Take full advantage of that. Digitize your framily treasures. Grandma's quilt? Take a photo of it, use some software to put a snapshot of grandma in the corner and type a label. Treasure preserved.
There are many other hints, like naming the pictures or organizing them so future generations will know who they are looking at. Yes, Jesus is coming soon, but we are to be found working as we watch and pray.
I spent much of the day working with pictures. Family, church, Christmas, Las Vegas, Disney, scenery, animals, events... snipets of our lives on this planet. Vignettes of the Things we've done and places we've been. Some are of interest to a select few, others are of great quality and would be pleasing to any eye. I tend to hold on to them dearly, especially now.
I have always treasured family keepsakes, pictures and memorabilia. In a big family, that stuff can pile up fast. Vowing to sort it all into albums, I packed it boxes and stored it in a metal storage building near our newly built retirement house in Pagosa Springs, CO... where the snow comes in doses of 10-12 inches at a time.
You guessed it, the building collapsed. Indeed, since we lived and worked six hours away, we didn't discover this sad event until several snowfalls later. Richard and a friend dug down to the fallen building and carefully brought the crushed and frozen boxes in. We hoped thawing and drying them out would leave us with a salvagable result. Wrong!
Much irreplacible treasure was lost. Now, as I go through the remaining boxes (the ones that never made it to Pagosa) I find that old color photos are badly degraded, turning orange. Old documents, printed on acid-laden paper, are crumbling to dust... I need to work fast and get this all digitized, backed up and shared with others.
It's a daunting chore and I often get sidetracked as I sit and reminisce about old times and old people. It can eat up a day before you know it... but I don't regret that. I'll dust and clean tomorrow.
For now, I'll leave you with this: God has chosen to place you and me in the digital era. Take full advantage of that. Digitize your framily treasures. Grandma's quilt? Take a photo of it, use some software to put a snapshot of grandma in the corner and type a label. Treasure preserved.
There are many other hints, like naming the pictures or organizing them so future generations will know who they are looking at. Yes, Jesus is coming soon, but we are to be found working as we watch and pray.
1 Comments:
Practical. Encouraging. Thanks for the promptings.
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