I was just looking at my archives page and, apparently, I made my first blog-like post-thingy five years ago today.  It was the post made to the page I started at the time for baby updates for my family and friends that don’t live near here.  That went on for the course of the pregnancy but it would be another three months or so before I started a “real” blog.  I’ve been asked before why I started blogging but, you know… I don’t know.  I don’t remember why, haha.

So that’s just an interesting tidbit for today, muahahaha.  Somewhat funny considering I spent most of the day with my mom working on a Christmas present for my grandpa. I’ve mentioned this before (because I’ve posted a clip) but years ago when my mom was really little, and my grandma was alive, they had a 8mm camera.  Many moons later, my uncle and aunt would have those old reels put to VHS tape.  And many moons after that, I would have the capabilities to digitally edit those VHS tapes.  Of course, they’re not the best quality, but what you going to do?  They’re not bad all things considering.

So my mom’s idea – that she just bounced of me this morning (we work fast) – is to take that video and consolidate it into the best clips that actually concern my grandpa and his kids and other close family.  It turned out that some of the video wasn’t of our family at all, but relatives of an in-law.  So we’re cutting that, anything that’s really bad quality, lengthy black spots or landscape or cars, and anything with my grandpa’s second wife in it (they’re divorced) or her son that my grandpa can’t stand.  We’re also not keeping the collection of still photographs from the original, so we’re down to about 53 minutes in length as opposed to two hours.  It’s been fun, though, except for the numerous times where I have to tell my mom that I do know what I’m doing and just tell me what she wants and I’ll do it.  ;-)  (Avid rules!)

But we’re changing the music, too, to stuff my grandpa likes and it’s really funny how some of it is falling together.  For instance, a line, “I’m gonna jump in the river,” plays right as you see my mom (or aunt) jumping in a lake to my great-aunt.  When Johnny Cash sings, “On a Tuesday, they locked me in jail,” my grandma and aunt are behind bars at some attraction in Branson.  And when Hank Williams Sr., says, “Heyyyyy, Good Lookin’” there’s a priceless shot of my mom at about age 5.  We were laughing so hard.

It will turn out great, I know Grandpa will love it.

Funny, though, the original VHS that these 8mm tapes were put to has a copyright notice on it and says that it cannot be copied without express permission of the company who copied the 8mm to VHS.  Sounds like hooey to me.  Mom laughed pretty hard anyway, “he can’t copyright my dad’s old 8mm films!”  I’ll bet the dude didn’t even have permission for the music he used… not that we do either, lol.