What a pleasant relief it was to step outside this morning into cooler air. Friday nights fast moving thunderstorm went a long way in replacing our oppressive humidity with cooler air. A welcome light rain overnight also helped chill things out a bit.
MANY BIG GREEN METAL MONSTERS IN THE FIELDS THIS MORNING
It was a no brainer for happy little Rascal Buns & I. After being trapped in the house by heat & humidity for the past 3 or 4 days we rumbled ourselves out the front door before 9 a.m. & were soon just a cloud of dust down a nearby country road. A few quick stops in Goderich with a swing through Walmart, a gas bar, & McDonalds, found us happily heading out of town with a full tank of gas & our morning munchies. Wasn’t long & we were once again in a land of ripened wheat fields, tall corn stocks, bean fields, lush forests, roadside creeks, & semi-dusty gravel roads . It was another 4 hours contentedly spent slowly wandering our areas rural countryside. It always feels like home to me. And with today’s cooler temperatures & morning breezes blowing wonderfully through the Jeep it just made for a totally oh so perfect summer Saturday morning……………
WE DID COME ACROSS SOME RATHER STRANGE CRITTERS TODAY NEAR DUNGANNON ONTARIO
Kelly worked an afternoon & evening shift at Deer Park Lodge so had herself a quiet relaxing morning at home. Of course any day without me here has to be quiet & relaxing. I often think of that when Pheebs & I are out Jeeping ourselves around. How nice of us guys to get out of Mom’s hair for a few hours every week. And we know she appreciates it too. Now how’s that for a thoughtful husband eh:)) 
LOTS OF CONTROVERSY GOING ON OVER WIND TURBINES IN OUR AREA
Ooooops, an oversight on my part regarding one of those 'sensor cleaning' photos in Friday night's post. Yes, that is the edge of a pine tree branch on the left side of the 'after' photo. I should have caught that & cropped it out or moved the camera slightly to the right when I took the photo. Sorry about the confusion. 
A COUPLE PAINTED TURTLES SOAKING UP SOME MORNING SUNSHINE
A RURAL SEA GULL CONVENTION
The last time I remember looking at any of my 35mm slides was probably 6 or 7 years ago. I had put on a travelogue for a group of Seniors at a local nursing home facility. When I turned off my projector that night, unbeknownst to me it was to be for the last time. My slides & projector have sat dormant ever since. So, the time to address my huge '35mm slide' problem has come. After years of using slide film only & I had accumulated somewhere in excess of 4,000 slides. They are stored in Kodak carousels stacked in my bedroom taking up a fair bit of space. Time to go. 
PHEEBS IS OLD ENOUGH TO DRIVE THE JEEP NOW 
AHHHHHHH, A GOOD OLD REFRESHING WATER PUDDLE DRINK
The last projector bulb I bought for my projector may have been over 10 years ago & cost $65 at that time. I know it is somewhere near the end of it's lifespan & buying another bulb, if they are even made anymore, doesn't make a lot of sense. Especially since it's been years since I have even looked at any of my slides. So, the decision I faced is what to do with those slides & how to do it. Digitalizing them is the obvious answer here & something I figured I could do myself. Second decision was, how important are these slides? Having not looked at them for years kind of answers that question. I'm guessing about 75% of them can go into the garbage & the rest will end up as file photos. It's not easy for me to throw a photo or slide into the garbage but it has to be done. My aging 20 to 35+ year old slides are old technology & compared to today's way of doing things, the quality just isn't there. Colors can begin to shift as slides age. And really, how important are all those old slides anyway. How many 30 year old repetitive flower pics do I really want to hang onto & for what purpose…………………………..
So, with the decision made to simply cull my slides into digitalized file copies It made my second decision much easier. Instead of buying a higher quality copier/scanner like the EPSON V500 I went with a simpler 35mm negative & slide copier. IMAGE CONVERSION. Tried it out today & it works just fine for my purpose. Nice & simple. I also like the fact, with it’s software, I have full Picasa 3.9 editing control over each slide-to-digital copy. This will be a long time consuming project but time is something I have plenty of. So with that thought in mind I will pull a large garbage can up close to the computer & soon begin the tedious but necessary task of culling somewhere between 4 & 5,000 slides.
GROANER’S CORNER:(( Dear Optimist, Pessimist, & Realist. While you guys were busy arguing about that absolute silly glass of water…………….I drank it!! Sincerely, the Opportunist.
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- Tourists see the world, travelers experience it.
- Home is where your pet is:))
- "If having a soul means being able to feel
love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals
are better off than a lot of humans."
(James Herriot)
- The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails -William Arthur Ward
- The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now...AL.
- It is not so much having nothing to do as it is not having the interest to do something....AL.
Pheebs should watch the video of the driving dogs in New Zealand! The humane society there taught some dogs to drive cars as part of a promotion to show how smart shelter dogs are. Real cars, real dogs, going very slow on an outdoor track. Just do a search on You Tube for driving dogs New Zealand. It's pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteNice post and so glad you had some nice weather come your way. Love the farms and fields AND the old barns! That Pheebs is not only the cutest, but smartest pup too!
ReplyDeleteYou will have to forgive my not knowing anything about technological advances since the millenium, but say you wanted to give a talk & photo presentation at an old folks home with your current set up, how would you do it? Would you somehow project from your computer onto a large screen?
ReplyDeleteYou are going to feel so good when you are done. I only scanned photos that might mean something to someone...like an old tractor from 1940s or an old car. Then all the photos of people. Its fun!
ReplyDeleteHi Al, you might be pleasantly surprised at the quality of your old slides. Some of the Kodak and Fuji slide films are holding their colour very well. The other thing to remember is back when we shot slides, we took a lot more care in setting up our shot because they cost so much. I think most of us get a lot sloppier using digital because there is no cost factor involved - just shoot lots and one will turn out!
ReplyDeleteJohn
digitize them all as fast as you can go, and cull the electronic storage...
ReplyDeleteIt is nice to have them digital I did mine a few years ago and culled the rest, only about 3,000 but got it done, some had badly discoloured but Picasa fixed most of them up.
ReplyDeleteHave fun!
Michael's Dad has tons of slides, you've given me an idea Al!
ReplyDeleteAl, I have tons of old slides, too. They are of my parents' house, them, vacations, etc. They are the ONLY photos of them. I need to go through them and sort them...maybe next week. That was before the digital age!
ReplyDeleteWe did the slides a few months ago. Culled them down to just a few and made a memory File.
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting a mower-conditioner, I did not not see one on the Alaska farm. It cuts the grass and then crunches it every inch or so and then puts it into a nice windrow for the hay baler. It eliminates the need for a hay rake. That is also a great pic of the grain header on a newer John Deer combine. If someone looks at both of our posts they can see all the machines used for hay and grain.
ReplyDeleteIt is fun to travel through farm country. Happy you enjoyed the day.