Whoa! Didja get the numbers off that truck?!?

January 01, 2007 - 11:05 a.m.

Good morning, 2007

First off, this cheery post Christmas news from our Bush administration. Well maybe not exactly from our government, it's more like cause and effect. Wheee! Mission Accomplished! Merry Christmas from The Decider.

Lately I've been playing a little game with myself. I call it "what was I doing ten years ago?" The subtitle is "and how am I doing compared to that now?" My last post up was kind of a riff on that theme. I've been having a pretty good time with this game, most of the comparisons are good.

I suppose if I could put a music bed in here, I'd HAVE to play Ten Years After. Ha! I kill me!

I'm capping off this holiday season with a little time travel because I bought one of these. I'm transferring all that videotape of my tiny kids to DVD. The effects of time were already present in the images, the high frequency content (fine detail) started going away as the magnetic memory in the tape started to forget. But my kids are still in there with their baby voices and Christmas morning enthusiasm. I'm up to six 2 hour DVDs, I'm making copies for each of the kids. I'm in there too, mid-thirties, not a trace of gray. It's kinda funny to look back on a time 18 years past. If I could somehow travel back to talk with myself about myself, I would agree with me that I lived in stressful complicated times. But I would also counter to the prehistoric me (in terms I wouldn't understand, of course) that actually I lived in very simple and uncomplicated times. $450.00 mortgage payments, 15 minute commute to work, tops. Always having the kids underfoot.

But I want these fuzzy images to last. Part of the videotape contains recordings of footage my grandfather shot with his 8mm camera. I recorded it years ago at my parents house, dad set up the projector and screen and I rolled videotape. I'm preserving that stuff for another generation by using light instead of magnetics. Hopefully the next generation will have a more permanent method than DVD. Meanwhile I'll do my part.

Son2 is coming up out of the basement and into his own place. I wondered how long it would take. His strong independent streak (which has kicked into high gear lately) clashed with the awkward position of living in someone else's house.

So he found a place that rents for cheap but he has to provide his own appliances. He found a pretty good gas range and a microwave for forty bucks. Now he needs a fridge. He found a good used one for $160. I was thinking of getting a new one, the one I have is as old as Son2. But it's reliable and I hate to part with an old friend. I thought about giving him that one, we'll see...

Actually this "independence" has conditions, his underage girlfriend is part of the deal. I think perhaps she needs to get out of Mommy and "Daddy's" house, and Son2 provides the momentum.

Whatever.

Oh wait...

You guys don't know most of this story, do you?



Happy New Year to all of you out there!

the last one -*- the next one