Technology Changes

I brought home 8 trays of approximately 80 slides in each plus a bunch of misc. slides from my parents. I began trying to figure out what was in each tray to make a priority of making them digital. I think my parents want their wedding and honeymoon pictures digital, I know they don't care about a Seminary presentation that my dad made 40 years ago.

I began by using a flashlight and the process was taking a long time. I took a break from identifying those slides and cleaned out my scrapbook closet. I dug out a few more boxes of slides that my mom gave me several years ago that I never even checked what was on them. I dug out all the negatives that I could find from my pre-digital camera days. I am determined to get all this organized instead of waiting 20 more years like my parents did. I also brought home the negatives from our wedding-the photographer took 700 pictures.

At this point I decided to buy a slide scanner but my F-I-L told me not to. I don't know if he is going to let me borrow one or plans to buy me one for a present or thinks I should just take these to Costco or what his reason is. But I'm obeying and holding off on buying a slide scanner for now.

Today I got the brilliant idea to use the old overhead projector from church to look at the slides. It sped up the process a lot-I placed about 25 slides on at a time and with the light could see the slides much better. I'm finished identifying most of the slides now. My next step is to make a priority list and number the slides to see exactly how many there are. My F-I-L asked how many I had and I really have no idea other than more than 650.

I'm excited to get some of these digital and share with my cousin John and cousin Dawn to begin with. They are both older than me and there are pictures of them as toddlers. There were quite a few of myself as a baby and toddler. After that my parents quit making slides and there are none of my sister. I grew up in Southern IN and a whole tray of slides was pictures of our town. My sister was born there but I'm sure she doesn't remember any of those pictures. I remembered most of the buildings including the school where I went to kindergarten. Out of all the slides those town pictures are the ones that mean the most to me.

I had no idea that my parents had all these slides. I never remember pulling the slide projector out and having a home movie show. Yes, we pulled it out for me to do a few presentations in high school. (Yes, I'm that old!-In my defense the teacher that made us use slides was also my dad's teacher and he retired a few years after I graduated.) Yes, we pulled it out to show slides of my trip to Israel. But showing and talking about pictures of trips my parents took before I was born never happened. I'm excited to get these digital and see what memories they bring back for my parents to talk about.

It's so ironic to me that because we couldn't find the cord for my dad's slide projector I used an overhead projector to help identify the slides. I have no idea what to do with my negatives I took with my first camera that are a disc shape. And I'm not even going to think about what to do with the rest of the VHS tapes of home movies... thankfully I already took several of those to Costco and did that project about 10 years ago, but there are more to do. It's a full time job to keep up with technology changes and decide what is worth keeping and what to let go with the filmstrip projector.

So all this is to say, if you are cleaning out your parent's house or a closet at church and you come across a power cord for a slide projector or light bulbs for an overhead projector, I'll gladly pay postage to you if you send it to me!