It's Time To Save Your Life

Just a very few years ago there was a company called Fotomat.  Fotomat's were little drive-up kiosks located in most shopping mall parking lots around the country.  They offered the convenience of developing your roll of photographic film without having to get out of your car.  Of course, you would have to wait several days to get back your 12 to 24 exposures back, but the convenience could not be beat.  Fotomat also sold Kodak film so you could drop off another roll to develop when you came back for the first one.  Simple marketing genius.

We needed to develop photos, and print them onto 3x5 inch photo paper,  in order to share our life with family and friends , and to fill all those shoe boxes in the closet.  We needed birthday pictures to send to grandma, and First Communion pictures to share with aunts and uncles.  Baby showers, school plays, weddings, and days at the beach pictures were needed in order to document our lives.   We would stuff envelopes with photos, and mail them to all corners of the globe, fill little albums and bring them to work for coworkers to see the new baby.  Generations of us shared our lives via Kodak.  It was a way of proving that we were here.

Kodak has changed.  They don't sell film anymore.  They don't even develop photos.  The digital camera rung the death knell for them, and with the peeling of that bell went a bit of Americana, and tradition, from our landscape.

We still share photographs.  The need to share our moments will never go away, it's a human condition.  We will record a scene at the beach on Cape Cod, and within seconds it will be viewed by grandma in Orlando.  No more 3x5's in the mail, and no more shoe boxes full of memories for future generations to get lost in on a rainy spring day.  Our moments in the mountains will be posted to Instagram, and Facebook for the world to see, but will only fade from memory.  Moments will be tweeted, instead of savored, and stored away.

We are taking more photographs than ever before in our history, but where are they?  Most are all 0's and 1's sitting in a cloud somewhere on the Internet.  Only a fraction are ever printed to share for posterity.  Most will save them on a memory card, and wait till its filled to capacity, then erase the card to fill with more temporary memories.

We may be taking more photographs than ever before, but in a few years  Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter may no longer be around, and neither will all those photos that have been posted.

Gone.

Entire parts of our lives gone with a click of "Delete".  So much for having a record of our time on this planet.

Unless we want to return to the days of oral story telling to paint a picture of an event we must begin savings our digital memories.  Save photos to some  permanent memory device such as a DVD, or flash drive, and when the technology changes in a couple of years, then switch over.  But even better, permanently preserve a percentage of your photos to a photo book.

Every few months, go through your photos on your phone, or digital camera, and select 10% of them to print in the form of a photo book.  The books are not expensive, and can be designed, and ordered from an app on your phone, tablet, or computer, or directly from some websites.  Ten per cent of your photos,  just ten of every hundred, will give a good representation of your life at any particular point.  You can edit, and weed out the cat chasing laser pictures, the multiple upon multiple new baby pictures, the even more countless selfies with no recognizable background.  Save only the best photographs that say something about the moment.  A photograph that will speak volumes when viewed years later on a rainy spring day even if your are not there to personally tell the story.

Besides having children, this is another, obviously less expensive way,  to leave bit of yourself behind, and prove to the next generation that you were here.  It's a vey good way to trap those memories forever in the real world, and not lost as so many 0's and 1's in the ether.

It's time to start saving your life.

Monday Morning Whine

It is March 17th, 2014.  St.  Patrick's Day, and it is 14.3 degrees outside at 7:30 AM.

The snow is still on the ground, and the ground is still frozen hard.  No sign of Mud Season yet.  The sap began to run when the temperature rose to the 50's a few days ago, but is most likely confused as heck right about now.

The snow cover in our backyard is slowly retreating like some ancient glacier only to loose ground to a "covering to an inch" of overnight frosty annoyance.

The frozen landscape on Brookfield Road.

I'm tired of winter.  I'm tired of cranking the heat in the car,  gray skies, scrapping windshields, shoveling frozen water from one place, and piling it in another place.

This is my seasonal Monday morning whine.  It is something that has to be done at least once each winter, and for the opposite reason, once each summer, or my head will explode.  And, yes, I am from New England, and I should be used to this, so why complain?

Being used to something doesn't mean one has to like it.

Lately, I have been using my Trulia iPhone real estate app to seek out a little piece of warmth in Florida.  Something to give refuge to this New Englander now, and again, and maybe a place to hide once retirement comes.

I never thought I'd consider becoming a "Snow Bird", someone that winters in warmer climes, and returns to New England in summer, but I am considering it.  I think it may be something that naturally evolves as one grows older, or just grows tired of winter.

I am feeling myself evolving, and I would really like to smell some mud right about now.

1821 Copy of Town Common Survey by Levi Chase

The 1821 handdrawn copy by historian Levi Chase of the original Town Common survey. 

Heating Oil Update

Pioneer Oil just dropped off another load 187.1 gallons of heating oil on Tuesday.  The previous delivery was on January 12th, and that was for 178.6 gallons.  Our tank has a capacity of 275 gallons.  Compared to 2013 we are  262.44 gallons over where we were last year at this time.  Oil prices have changed little, but they are still high, $3.97 to $4.09 / gallon.

Think it's the weather?

This year we are a lot colder that we were last year.  Our snowfall thus far this year has been 20 inches, and it was only 7.2 inches last year.  Temperturtes have been much colder this year as well.  This can account for the usage.  3.8 gallons a day since the last delivery is well within the expected norm, but I expected far less due to our vigilance, new boiler, and new Nest thermostat.

No matter what  we do to conserve, the weather puts up a good fight.  If we did nothing we would loose for sure.  I'm not complaining, just being observant.

I can't wait for the insulation to be installed this coming fall.  That will be a game changer.

One thing I can say is that since the new boiler went in, and the new thermostat, we are not cold as we have been in the past.  The boiler heats better, the steam is more abundant in the radiators as opposed to 30%, or more, flying up the chimney from the broken old boiler, and manner in which the house is heated is well controlled by that miriacle Nest knob on the wall.

If all goes according to our 2013 history, we should have one more delivery in March / April, and then nothing till Fall.  Before we put in the on demand hot water system we would get a delvery in June as well.  Stay tuned.

How are you doing heating your home this winter?

Snowblower Repair?

Now for something completely different.

If you know of a snowblower repair person that willl come to our house, and either repair the belt that broke this morning, or be able to take it a local shop, let us know.  Leave a comment with contact information, or email me at aroundsturbridge@gmail.com.  The machine is a Craftsman 8 HP, 2 years old.

Thank you very much.

Oh, and right after the belt started to smoke, I took the shovel to the hard snow at the end of the driveway.  As you can see, I'm screwed.