Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Light blogging techno day

Pardon the light blogging today. I had a project this morning.

I was converting a VHS tape to DVD. It's tricky. You have to be careful about the oxygen:acetylene ratio, where and how you apply the heat and how much, what types of hammers to use, where and how you hit it and how hard, which panel beating form you use, stuff like that.

Seriously, that part was mostly a matter of reading the directions on the VHS/DVD machine. And following them. What a concept!

The tape was a compilation of films about Southern California motorcycle races from 1952-1959, and I've had it since maybe 1985. I hadn't watched it in a long time, so I sat and watched it while it was dubbing. I'm happy to report that the tape hadn't noticeably deteriorated and the subject matter took me back many, many years.

Then I had to write some liner notes for it and make sure they fit in the jewel case.

The whole thing worked so well that Mrs. G wants me to do Man Of Aran next, so I had to dig that out to do tomorrow. I have lots of VHS tapes to do, so it's looking like busy, busy until I run out of blank DVDs, then I can 'forget' to get some more for a while.

I've also been busy lately looking at old slides and compiling a selection out of maybe 600 of them to get put on a DVD at Costco this coming Friday. Now I've gotta get a slide scanner so I can digitize the rest of them into the computer, and whatever it takes to upgrade the computer to burn DVDs.

Then I need to get a DVD copier so it'll be easier to share all this stuff. Sigh. It never stops, but modern consumer home electronics is a wonderful thing and will let me put a lot of memories into an easier viewing and much more transportable format.

Suggestions are welcome.

Naturally, I want to do all this stuff so it'll all be on DVD by the time I need to put it all on Blu-Ray. Timing is everything. Yeesh. At least I got all my Super 8 home movies done last summer.

I gotta stay busy or I'm liable to get old right along with Super 8 and 35mm slides and VHS, which were the home media marvels of their time. I think I'll just shine on the 8-tracks...

Ashes to ashes and dust to dust,
I may burn out but I'll never rust!


See yas later.

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