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Video Conversion Round 2

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I finally put the order in to convert some VHS tapes I have over to DVD. I was so satisfied with the 8mm conversions that I am using the same place. I am also sending in about 400 photo's to be scanned as well. I am really upset at the condition my mom kept these photos. She is now finally keeping them in photo box's after years in baskets near the radiators and open windows in her apartment. Tons of photos have been ruined or damaged by getting wet or really hot. I hope the Home Movie Depot is able to scan everything I sent in. All I can say is thank goodness for Photoshop, or in my case Gimp since I am not paying for Photoshop.

I underestimated the number of photos that my parents actually have. I am at 400 photo's in the one box that I took from my mom. I didn't even get everything out of the box but I figured 400 was a nice round number to start with. There is about 4-5 other box's of photos to go, plus a box of slides. I think I might blow my budget on this project. In the end I think it will be worth it to have everything in digital format. I am also having trouble identifying what I might have already scanned over the past 10 years. I found a bunch of images that I already scanned a few years ago, and I bet a bunch more will be duplicated.

My annal attempt at cataloging everything is paying off to a certain degree. I was able to post a bunch of stuff to Facebook and it is hilarious to see the comments from friends.

On the video side of things I am doing only two VHS tapes in this run. That is because I want the original AVI's of these two tapes, and the HDD I am sending the processing place can only handle about two tapes. I am sending in my sisters sweet sixteen video and my Bar Mitzvah video. The next round of stuff I don't really want or need the original source material so I won't use a hard drive. I will wait until I get this first batch back before I send in the next one. That way I can also spread the expense into another month. This stuff isn't cheap, but this batch is about half the price of the 8mm batch.

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Memory Lane

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I gave up on trying to sleep tonight so I decided to post some recent and not so recent photos to my Facebook site. I got a bunch form the Redcats holiday party last December, a few from being out Friday night, and a bunch from HS. I have a ton more from HS I need to sort through and get up online. It is actually kind of fun to see the comments from everyone. I am most productive late at night when I can't sleep!

Thankfully A Lazy Sunday

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Thankfully this weekend has so far been uneventful. After the antics all week I wanted some nice time relaxing at home. I got a fresh direct delivery, watched some movies and did two loads of laundry today. It might sound boring, but being able to sit back for a while was nice.

I had so much time (well sort of) that I was able to organize all my DVD’s. I have been meaning to do that for months and I finally had some time, and my book shelf was getting really messy so I spent the hour sorting through everything. For the past several months I have been on a organization kick. I have new storage containers for my computer gear and nice cases for all my CD’s & DVD’s.

Drinks & Karaoke

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After an agonizing second half of the week at work I was glad to meet up with some friends for an all you can drink 2 hours, followed by some Karaoke. I can't go into what went on at work, but I am amazed at the positive and negative capacity of some people. I will probably write more about the topic on my private work blog but whatever I have to say really isn't for public consumption as much as I would like to vent about it.

I meet up with Luke and a bunch of his work friends at a bar relatively near Grand Central around 6PM, aka right before it poured. We had a two hours all you can drink for $15 special going on. I admit i am a light weight when it comes to drinking but I attempted to get my moneys worth. I can't recall if I did, so I might have! From there we went over to Japas for some Karaoke. We meet up with Vanessa, Ben & Mike. I hung out for a while until I went home to crash after my horrible week. Before I left I do recall taking part in some musical antics, but don't remember what songs they were. Oh well.

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Meeting Old Friends

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Last night I meet up with my friend Karen. She was in from Baton Rouge and was having a little get together with her friends. We meet at a bar near Cooper Square. I had fun, even though I only knew Karen and barely knew one or two other of her friends. All our other mutual friends punked out and didn't want to come into the city. Who would have though I was the adventurous outgoing one of the group?

Like I said I had fun, but I guess I didn't realize how much I had to drink. I felt like crap all night long and barely slept. I didn't think I drank that much, but I guess after 4 hours I might have. Dam Jack Daniels, you taste too good in Coke.

I hope to get down to Baton Rouge sometime when I finally get some vacation time and hang with Joe & Karen. It has been 2 years since I last saw Joe. I don't like loosing touch with old friends.

The rest of the day was taken up by me trying to sleep and relax after a horrible sleepless night. I should have taken a photo of all the blown capillaries under my eyes. It was nasty. I am now trying to wind down so I can get ready for the work week ahead.

Light Friday Night

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Busy morning at work. A few meetings, and a few canceled meetings. I did get to meet up with Jayson for lunch. Since I started my new job back in May I haven’t had much opportunity to goto lunch with friends. The two main reasons are I am at a new job, and it is hard to get away for a while during the day, even if it is once every week or every two weeks. The main reason I haven’t meet up much with friends is because I am working on the east side again, and now all my friends are working on the west side. I went from being centrally located to everyone, to being really far away from everyone. That goes back to reason 1, not having tons of time to get away especially since travel time to meet up with everyone at our usual spot would take a while.

I was able to get some real work done in the afternoon (real, vs meetings I have been in since Tuesday). I wrapped up the day with staff meetings with most of my team. So yeah more meetings was fun.

Not much going on tonight. I didn’t see anyone online in the late afternoon to see if anyone was going out for drinks. I wasn’t really up for drinks anyway so it worked out. I have been drained once work is over for the past few weeks. I will take rest when I can.

The Pharmacy

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I am back at the pharmacy for the second time this week since my prescription wasn’t completely ready when I went on Monday. This sucks because it is the old pharmacy I went to near my old office. Well sort of, the pharmacy I used to goto closed and this is one nearby the old one. The problem is my new office is totally cross town and a pain to get to this one. Two trips in a week is one thing, but for some reason this place is always busy. There is always a 15 minute line, and every time I have been there they never have had my prescriptions ready even after calling or refilling online days before. I am stuck going here since for some reason the prescription I am refilling cannot be moved to a different pharmacy.

At least this was the most annoying thing to happen to me today. I was in meetings most of the day so it was a bit grueling but otherwise uneventful.

Sleeping Issues With a Twist

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I have had on and off (mainly on) sleeping troubles since I decided to start looking for a new job back in April. There is no question it is stress related. It had gotten better as I settled into my new job, but last week I started having problems again, but this time with a twist. I don’t know what I did but now my neck has been hurting really bad. I think it might have started by me sleeping on it wrong, but it also hurts during the day periodically. I have had neck pain before (I went to a chiropractor when i was like 11 for issues) but this hurts. I knew it was bad when my friends at the bar on Friday were wondering if I was ok because I wouldn’t turn in one direction. My dad says to give it some more time before I have it looked at, but I think that I need to do something about it really soon. I can’t sleep because it hurts when I lie certain ways, and I think it is causing minor head aches. Minor head aches are one thing, but for someone who gets migraines because of minor head aches I have to worry. Thankfully I have only had one incident today when i had to take my migraine meds. A good night sleep right about now would be really nice!

This Weekend

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I went to see The Dark Knight with Danny in Union Square Saturday night. We went for some food and a few drinks afterward. The movie was good, but not awesome. Until the last Batman movie I hadn’t been a huge fan of the franchise anyway, so the new ones are converting me over!

Today was more relaxing. I cleaned up my apartment, and did some reorganization on my computer. It took all week to move 1.4+ terabytes of data around on my newly upgraded Drobo. I like the unit, but performance is sucking big time after I put the 4th 1TB drive in. It stinks attached to my Mini or as a NAS. I don’t know what the deal is.

Other than that I relaxed. Having some down time since the weeks are hectic is nice!

Friday Out

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Last night I went out with friends for Lukes birthday. We went to Windfall and had a good time. We ended a bit earlier than I thought but fun was still had. Luke usually is out late so for his B-day i figured a late one, but he got blasted early and headed to another bar. He is always fun to hang with. My neck was killing me so I headed out by 8. Yes that is really early, but it isn’t so bad when you start at 5pm sharp!

I got to see a bunch of friends from my old job that I hadn’t seen in a few weeks. I hadn’t gone out in about 2 weeks since work was crazy and i was tired, but I couldn’t stay away for Luke’s b-day. I am hoping to get out again next week with that group.