Family

Dinner With My Parents

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Tonight my parents came over and we had dinner. We ordered in, which is is a change of pace for us. I finally gave my mom her birthday present. We viewed the raw footage from the 8mm film I had converted to DVD. Seeing the reactions from both my parents was well worth the price I paid to have the film converted. I took notes on when most of the clips were taken so I could resequenced them correctly. I had to guess at the order of teh clips when I had them put to DVD. I am glad I paid to get the raw AVI files since I can go back and add a music sound track and sequence the files using iMovie. I demonstrated one of the 22 clips with a music sound track and my mom loved it. The video editing takes time, but the finished product is fantastic.

Today was basically a trip down memory lane. I had been playing with iMovie for a while before my parents came over. I wish I had more reasons to take more pictures or video, since I have fun editing stuff. The only real stuff I take pictures of now are my niece and nephew. I showed my mom some quick slide shows of them on my Apple TV and she loved them also.

My biggest problem is that there is almost no video of me as a kid except for the 8mm video I just put to DVD. Then there is my Bar Mitzvah video that I have a low quality MPEG-1 of. I am having that converted by the same people that did the 8mm videos in the next week or so.

Once I have the finished DVD with some music to it I will give my parents a remastered copy. If I have time I will also put a web friendly version on my flickr page for other family members.

The stroll down memory lane was fun, but I need to get ready for work tomorrow.

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Home Videos

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Other really cool news that happened yesterday was that I got back my families home movies from Home Movie Depot. They were finished allot sooner than I anticipated, so I was really happy. I browsed the DVD’s since I wanted to see them, but I need to sit with my parents and watch the whole things since they can tell me what and who I am seeing.

First impressions are that this service was fantastic. Some of the clips are really washed out and almost impossible to see, but I think that has more to do with the fact that they were in a box for 35 years and may have been poorly shot when they were taken. Most of the clips looked great.

I am also glad I spent the extra money on the hard drive with the original AVI’s they created before they burned the DVD’s. I do want to re-order the clips since I labeled them wrong. I also would love to try and add music to the video since there is no audio on old 8mm film. All the source material AVI’s equal about 20 Gig’s of drive space. I am going to keep those, and make copies to play with. I want to see if i can convert them to put on my Flickr account, or my Apple TV. To me, cleaning them up will be a fun project. I am going to see what I can do with the clips in iMovie, and iDVD. If I can’t do everything that I want, I will play around with Final Cut Express, but I am not sure if that program is overkill for my needs.

I am planning on having my family over and have a BBQ and then view the DVD’s!!!

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Wedding Invites

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Other news from this weekend is that I got not one, but two wedding invitations. My cousin Adrian is getting married in August. I need to make arrangements at work to go, since the wedding is just before 6pm on a Friday. It seems like an odd time but I think I can work from my home, or to be more precise my parents house that day and then go straight to the wedding from there.

The other wedding invite I got is from my friend John. He is getting married in September. His wedding seems interesting. It will be very casual. So casual he stated that weather permitting he wants to encourage shorts for everyone. unfortunately my cousin Adrian’s wedding is a bit more dressy than that.

8mm Film Conversion

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Being in technology I have tried to digitize as much stuff as possible. I have been scanning documents since 2000. I have been using a Tivo vs VCR’s since 2001. Over the years (since 1995 actually) I have made it a project to scan as many photos that I could. In the past 8 years all new photos have been in digitial format making archiving them easy. I still have a long way to go scanning all my families old photos, but I have allot of the really good ones scanned already.

The one area of digital archiving that I have had an issue with was old videos. I have done crude conversions of VCR tapes to AVI a few years ago of my Bar Mitzvah video and my sisters sweet sixteen video. The source material wasn’t so great so the quality of the video wasn’t so hot. I never was able to clean it up using final cut since I would have had to do a bunch of converting to different file formats. The biggest amount of video that my parents have of me and my sister growing up is on 8mm however. Converting that to some sort of digital media is not something you can do a good job of doing yourself. I have looked for places locally that would do the job, but wasn’t too happy with the selection (aka I thought most of them seemed kind of shady). Last year I found two different places online that looked like they were very reputable and did this sort of digital archiving all the time. I proceeded to loose the links to the sites and tossed out hours of research. I promised my mom that I would convert all the 8mm video to DVD. I thought she would be really happy but didn’t seem to into it. I think she just didn’t want that as her birthday gift:( Well last week I decided to find the sites I researched last year. I found them and selected one of them to send in my videos to.

I ended up choosing The Home Movie Depot. At first I was going to send in one reel of 25′ to see how the quality was. I was also concerned about the fact that I was shipping irreplaceable family history, and I didn’t have any backups. After reading the reviews of the site, and weighing all my options I just decided to send in everything. I figured there aren’t many places that look like they can do this type of work very well, and if I didn’t convert them they wouldn’t be looked at anyway. I also want to get them onto another format before the film goes bad. I don’t even know if the film is still good now, but the two canisters I opened looked ok.

I am waiting for the Home Movie Depot to send me the packing materials to ship in my 20 25′ reels and two 350′ reels. For something like this I paid extra for the packing materials as well as overnight shipping. I heard from a logistics guy I know that overnight is always better for sensitive stuff since it has less of a chance to get lost. Once I send in the film it will be about 2 weeks until I get them back on DVD. I also paid to have the original AVI’s they create put onto a hard drive. That way I should be able to create my own DVD’s and add sound tracks and stuff to the video’s.

I am excited to see these films once I get them back. I remember being little and watching them with the family. It was always a production to get out the projector and look at them. I don’t think I have seen then in at least 25 years. If this comes out well, I will send in any remaining slides my dad hasn’t scanned to just get those done also. The process for the film conversion isn’t cheap but if it does what I want it to, the cost is worth it. I will probably write more about this once I get the film back.

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Dinner With The Family

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My sister was in Queens today for a birthday party. That meant I got to see the family for dinner. Everyone made it out to my place since my sister was driving back to Jersey after we ate it was centrally located for everyone. I like being centrally located since I am the only one in the family that doesn’t have a car. I was able to get a few shots of the kids when we were eating. Zachary enjoyed making a big mess of his ice cream! As usual all he wanted was to be hanging with his Poppy!

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It was an early dinner since Carrie had a long drive home with the kids.

Fathers Day

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This fathers day I was supposed to have dinner with my parents and they would spend time with my sister Sunday morning. Like many plans in my family that setup changed at the last minute so I found myself at a backyard party my sister threw at her house. Flickr photo stream is here. As much as I don’t like the two hours plus trip to get to my sisters, I usually have a good time. Sunday was beautiful day. It was the first time I was at the house and able to use the pool.

It was a great day all around. How can you really complain when you sit around and eat, lie around in the pool play with the kids in the pool? When I wasn’t in the pool I kept cool by siting at the patio table and Zachary kept coming over with a watering bucket and wet my feet. For some reason he loved doing it, and it kept him busy for like 90 minutes.

The only down side really of visiting is that the drive home is usually horrible with tons of traffic on a Sunday night. Compound that on top of the fact that I am not a huge fan of sleeping over when there are tons of other people over. There just isn’t enough places to sleep comfortably. I will say that I do get in ample reading on NJT on the train ride out. Going home the ride sucks, but I would rather riding in the car with my parents if there are there than taking a train home and dealing with the limited sunday night schedule.

I still need to figure out what to get my dad for fathers day, and his birthday for that matter. He is now help, since he has no idea what he wants.

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Dinner With The Family

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Today I was back at work but still felt like crap. I did feel better than I did yesterday but I was really tired and stuffed up. Other than that the day at work was uneventful. I was originally planning to go out by my parents to have dinner with them and my sister who was visiting. It turned out that the weather wasn’t so great so my mom, sister, and the kids didn’t goto the beach. That was a win for me since they wouldn’t be rushing to travel home from the beach to eat, they decided to come by my neighborhood to a restaurant. I was thankful since it would have been a trek for me to get to them, and I was out of it. Sometimes relying on mass transit sucks, this was one of those times.

We ended up going to the crap house by my place. I had crab cakes. It was good, but I would have appreciated the food more if I wasn’t sick. I did get to see my parents and my niece and nephew (my sister too). They are so cute. I know I say that allot, and most people say that about relatives, but they always put a smile on my face when I see them. I wish they kept their distance from me because I didn’t want to give them anything, but my sister wasn’t worried. Morgan, and I shared a piece of chocolate cake with my dad for his birthday. Morgan had more than both my dad and I.

Since it was Zachary’s birthday yesterday we had cake and sang happy birthday for him and my dad. Zachary loves to sing happy birthday. I am going to try and get some photos my sister took of the kids at dinner. They were funny.

I Hate Sick Days

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I worked from home today due to my head cold. My prediction on monday was unfortunately dead on. I woke up yesterday and felt like crap. Everyone at work wondered why I was in. All I can say is one I get bored being home sick, and two when you are the new guy you don’t typically take off on your third week at work. By this morning I was just too beat to go in, so with everyone’s blessing I worked via VPN. You have to love VPN. The added benefit of not going into work and doing things remotely was that I didn’t have to talk to anyone. That was great since my throat hurt when I spoke. I only had to talk on one conference call, and even then I didn’t have to talk much.

Hopefully I feel better tomorrow, since I can’t sit home another day or I will go crazy. It is also my Dad’s birthday tomorrow so I need to be in shape to travel to my parents house so we can go out to dinner.

Unemployment, For Two Days Anyway

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I am technically now unemployed for two full days. I am finished with my old job, but the new one doesn’t start until Monday. I haven’t done anything today since I was “resting” from going out last night. I didn’t get much sleep last night so it was nice to nap a bit this afternoon. Other than that I really didn’t do anything today. It feels good. I say that on day one of my mini vacation. I know by Sunday I will be begging to do anything at work.

I talked to my sister today. I don’t know what to get Zachary for his birthday. Her response was to ask how much money I want to spend. That is a tough question. I will get him anything he wants, within reason. He is only two. An expensive gift will really not be appreciated by him. Now getting something nice for Morgan if she asks for it would be appropriate! I am stuck. I will wait and see what Carrie thinks of for the little guy. I don’t want to be like my dad and buy whatever he wants for the kid even if that means it is something for a 3 or 4 year old and he is only 2.

I am thinking of getting out a bit tonight. I wanted to do a little shopping but I am lazy. It is almost 6pm,and I do have 3 full days to do shopping. Hmmm, what to do. Let me go ponder that for a while until I decide to sit around and order in dinner and not go out!

Mothers Day

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It’s Mothers Day! I went with my mom to my sisters house for the day. My dad had gone out with my sister Saturday night since she was visiting with them on Saturday. My mom had stuff to do around their apartment so she wanted to go Sunday morning. That also meant that I didn’t have to sleep over. I can’t sleep in my sisters house. Not sure why, but I have trouble.

We had a good day. Hung out and did some work around the house in the early afternoon. Than Mike’s sister, husband, kids came over. Andrews sister also came with her husband and kid. It was a full house. We had a BBQ. It was a bit chilly out but Ross cooked while the rest of us were inside. I did get to spend some time outside with Zach and Morgan. Photos are over on my Flickr profile.

Overall it was a nice mothers day. There was allot of driving in the car but it wasn’t so bad. I got home around 10PM, but I didn’t have to go into work first thing anyway so it wasn’t so bad.