One man, one job

The guy doing our bathroom is back today, and the pounding on the walls has resumed.  The day is cold and clear, but I managed to get up a sweat during my one-hour three-mile walk.  Electronic replies are owed to a couple of my overseas friends, and I intend after this blog is posted to fulfill my e-mail obligations.

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Interruptions and unforeseen events of one sort or another have made it impractical to complete some projects that have been awaiting my attention.  These nonessential projects call for a lot of sitting, and a lot of time.  Both these prerequisites are problematical given the tough demands the tasks will make on my lower back and the dearth of continuous hours that may realistically be allocated to them.

I'm speaking of organizing and scanning old photographs to turn them into digital files, and ultimately into DVDs to be shared with family members and friends.  Likewise, the conversion to DVD of old movie films and videotapes of birthdays, weddings, vacations, and other events over the course of many decades.  

In themselves, the projects can usually be fun, but the cost in sedentary man-hours to complete them in a fashion that will sustain viewers' interest, and not bore them into a stupor after the first several minutes, is quite heavy.  Especially when it is, and has to be, a one-man job.

Scanning old slides and negatives, or prints, requires on average about a minute per photograph, at least on the equipment I use.  And when you have these in the thousands, to sort, catalog, identify, scan and import into a computer's drive, clean electronically, assemble the parts into a story that makes sense, add titles, narration, and music, and finally burn onto a DVD, you have yourself quite a job.

Then there are the old 8mm movies, where you have to set up an old, clattering projector and screen to play them back, and videotape them with the projector running.  Then you digitally transfer the video to also be edited on the computer, and add the transitions, and titles, and music to make the finished product worth watching, while cutting out all the badly exposed or scratched parts.

Did I say the projects could be fun?  It's beginning to sound more and more like work.

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For dinner today I made a Tuscan leek and bean soup, accompanied by garlic toast.  

No, definitely no Chinese food for awhile.