Deleting Digital Debris

Day 130 - It is not even spring yet, but I fell into some sort of clearing and cleaning fit. Today, I decided to organize my archived computer files.

I got a Gmail account when it was available by invitation only. That was on May 23, 2004. At the time, I also started using Google drive as a means to back up old files rather than storing on a CDROM. Several years ago, I was shocked to see email going back that far. Many things in life are best left to what a human brain can remember. So, I moved to a more secure, less invasive option for email and got rid of every single Gmail message! Even when emptied of mail, files on my drive total still stood at just shy of 11 GB.

My goal was to say goodbye to files which I'd probably never, ever view again. One of the first folders I removed had over 3 GB of files. There were Word and Excel files but also video clips and sound recordings from my 17 years of teaching at BC Institute of Technology. I surely created a lot of materials! I retired more than five and half years ago, but that all that junk felt as though it was weighing me down. Select. Gulp. Remove.

After I saw how easy it was, I decided I should clear the Google Drive completely. Having 15 GB of free cloud space used to feel remarkable. I am still in possession of computer backup files going back to my very IBM-compatible in 1985. Although many of the file formats are now defunct, I just couldn't bring myself to say adiós to all of that! However, I couldn't justify keeping it under Google's control. I simply downloaded the mess and at present, it's being copied to a USB flash drive.

Deleting the whole kit and kaboodle from my drive was tedious. A quick way to get rid of all files is not available. Google never really believes that anyone would want to delete personal information! Anyway, it now stands completely empty. I was able to clean up much of what I'd collected and still retain my original Google account.

Of course, while copying and pasting, I discovered many files that were interesting. Here is an original digital photo that was taken from my high school 25th reunion back in 2002. I had a new digital camera at the event but I must explain that I found this in a folder marked as photos take from Bret Wirta. It cleaned up well. Cheers, gals.

A Few Months is Hardly a Difference

What was that USPS package in my mailbox? I did order a replacement remote for my ancient Onkyo Home Theatre System. My Internet search showed a single Florida business where I could order the no-longer-produced item. I did that yesterday, so I knew it couldn't have already arrived. The mystery box had no visible return address.



As soon as I saw the handwriting and images on the enclosed card, I knew it was from old friend, Bret. Notice my inclusion of 'old' which can mean 'for a long time' or 'advanced in age'. There was a smaller wrapped packet inside too.

I was quite surprised to find a brand-new, 38-year-old t-shirt. It is the perfect gift. It would barely fit around my right arm nowadays, but how cool to have a souvenir from my youth! Bret and I co-owned one of the most notorious boats floating (sometimes) on Lake Sunapee at the time. It was purely for recreational purposes and the original printed shirt proved we had quite a few 'passengers' to clothe and impress.



I cannot dispute that I moved into my sixth decade before Bret. However, that does not make him as young as his card seems to imply. I know this for a fact. In fact, I submit this photographic evidence captured just shy of a decade ago. This photo of him and his son was taken on August 23, 2009, during his surprise birthday party in Ballard, WA. He would be turning 50 years old. So, if my math is right ...

Seeing with Our Own Eyes

One advantage of continuing to add stuff online for fourteen years in a row, is being able to search years back through things which one cannot completely remember. What was it I had for dinner last night, again?

I sort of recalled playing with a photo editor back in the days of bulky desktop computers. I cannot accurately say what prompted me to create the image but I used it right here in my eJournal and images in May of 2004. Was it simply due to a discussion at Bret's house about a movie? Obviously, in the faked shot Joel, Lynne, and I wouldn't have been very appropriately attired.


However, Jay and I went uptown this morning. We met again with Arleen at CruiseShipCenters. I hope to take much better photos of him and me on Corfu toward the end of the summer. In 2017, our trip should not require the aid of any cumbersome photo editing.

Is Retired Life a Vacation? - Day 109

Today is the beginning of the work week in Egypt. At least it starts the banking week and we needed to make a withdrawal from our bank's ATM. As the machine dispenses LE 200 notes, I generally go inside to break them into smaller 100's and 50's. Even those can be hard to use if buying from farmers at the Tuesday Markets. Additionally, we hadn't been to our main supermarket on the East Bank since before our cruise. It is a relatively short walk from the HSBC branch, so we did a little grocery shopping too. Going over on the Ferry Boat and back took some time and, as a consequence, we were probably away for more than a few hours.


I've long maintained that errands are basically the 'stuff of life'. Rather than trying to rush through these type of chores, one should embrace the experiences. Waiting in a queue at the bank might not be the epitome of fun, but most all of life can be savoured with the right mindset.

Today, though I have a few more related thoughts to add. This is mostly because of a Facebook response from my old friend, Bret. He commented on the fact we'd arrived back from our Nile cruise by saying, "Welcome back from vacation to ... vacation?" I assured him that this would be real life for our remaining seven or eight weeks in Luxor.

Words are funny things. I don't consider our five months here a vacation. That would mean rushing back to work at the end of it. We have simply chosen to live in a different environment for the winter. I guess when one is retired there are no vacations; instead, one has the chance to get one's own life back.

Personal Quote #94

"You do stuff.
Then, you die.

Try to spend time doing stuff that you'd want to remember."

Dennis Sylvester Hurd (1959- )

Childhood friend, Bret, posted a Facebook photo of his lovely family on the Getreidegasse in Salzburg, Austria. I thought it was pretty neat that we'd walked the same street although many years apart. I went directly to Flickr to see if Jay and I could have stood at the very same spot. Sadly, I didn't spot any exactly matching businesses or street signs in our pictures from the 2007 trip.

Tracking Down Siglinda

I'm pretty sure the whole purpose of my eJournal and images is to allow me an Internet version of my own gigantic scrapbook. I guess I should arrive at some definitive purpose for this blog as it's now approaching ten years of daily entries! I do know time and distance used to allow memories to slowly dissolve. An occasional incomplete misty fragment had to be left wanting as there was no means to refresh it. No way existed to revive a concrete image of little snippets of things gone by.

I somehow found my 2005 entry in which I first posted a photo from the 80's. Today, I added it to The Harbor Gameroom's Facebook page as it also contained old friends, Bret and Joel. I noted the title and wondered if I could find out more.

An exhaustive Net search for Siglinda Steinfuller turned up little, but here's the scoop. I remembered the name and was pretty sure pinup posters were a marketing campaign for a beer company. Eventually, although it required a substantial amount of image editing, I'm proud to present this:


She was the Dean of Beer. People, I guess, drank Schlitz in 1977. This was the year I was a college freshman. By 1982 Schlitz had been sold to Stroh Brewery Company. I'm not sure how effective Schlitz was in increasing college beer sales with these posters, but I recall them being a big hit in male dorm rooms. The legal drinking age, back then, was 18. Siglinda Steinfuller was probably the most popular girl on campus that fall.

Shrubberies

I was going to entitle this entry, "The Knights Who Say Ni", but I expect that reference might be a little too obscure for some. The sun was out, so I wanted to snap another picture or two (or four) of the construction of New Westminster's Pier Park along the Fraser River. The sun didn't stay out long but the pictures should last for a while.** I have mentioned the background and construction of the park a number of times here over the last few years. I also have added today's pictures to a Flickr collection with 150 images.

I really do look forward to the official opening of the Westminster Pier Park sometime this spring, or at least sometime in 2012. There seems like an enormous amount of work yet to be completed.



(** Especially after inclusion of this data into the Federation's future Interplanetary Database. Sorry Bret, we cannot expect them to accept musty, historical, paper-based tomes aboard Starships.)

Drop It In Here. Use It There.

I have noticed how dropbox changes the lives of people who use it. Students never seem to carry around USB memory anymore. If you've got Internet, then you can have access to your commonly used files. The concept is brilliant as it allows 'sharing' by an email link as well. I can drop something in my public folder in order to share with anyone. Furthermore, dropbox applications can run on all sorts of platforms or in any computer browser. I have it loaded on all systems and my Android phone. I mentioned dropbox on Facebook and a friend, Bret Wirta, mentioned he finds it useful too. It's nice to have intelligent company.

Universal storage space on the Internet is what people mean when they talk about the cloud, although some implementations like online email have been around for a long time now. As an aside, I have never understood why anyone would want a standalone email client in this day and age. I demand that my email data be available from everywhere. The fact I was able to send out a message with attached picture from a desolate beach yesterday shows the benefits of online and cloud services.

I wanted to suggest another use for dropbox. I think it's going to be useful for travel. I have put passport copies and important document PDFs in a special folder. Today, I thought that I should also carry maps and information from guide books in a folder as well. I'll just snap a photo and upload it. Why print out something extra to carry along?

The Three Amigos

Bret, Joel, and I were at Joel's house between Ellensburg and Yakima Washington this weekend in recognition of Ben Thomas's college graduation. There were many people and lots of food and drink. It was a great afternoon for photos.

You see, the three of us have known each other forever (which, in case you weren't aware, was 1976). That's the year Joel moved to Sunapee, New Hampshire to join us in high school. During college days, having the Harbor Gameroom in common strengthened the friendship that continues to this very day. Even fate would guarantee that we live within 250 miles of each other, although we're on the opposite side of the continent from where the friendship was struck.

I think Bret figures we need to step up the frequency of our Three Amigo shots. I also think I know why. I agree with the idea of taking the shots more frequently as years pass. We don't have the chance to meet often but when we do the camera must come out. The lapse between the original group shots was nearly twenty years. We were still young. Then, it was only twice per decade. I don't see much change there. But this time, it has only been a little less than two years between photographic evidence.

We must continue often so future changes don't become too startling; you know, I'm just thinking about upcoming wrinkles and all. Perhaps every pose from now on should occur at a greater and greater distance from the lens too. Eventually, perhaps, I'll need to do a little photoshopping to conceal the ravages of time. But at the moment, I think we all still look marvelous!

2011


2009


2004


1999


1980

I Love Zeros and Ones

It seems to me I've always been on Flickr. Of course this can hardly be true. In fact, back when life was analog, I didn't keep such good track of things such as photos. Even after I started shooting digital, the images sat on the drive after coming off the memory card.

For a while I was pretty good at scanning old pictures but haven't done so in many a moon. Thankfully, I never lost any files due to fairly good computer backup procedures. So, it's fun to take a second or two once in a while to travel back before 2005. I can easily locate images which are already in digital form. For example, the following picture was located at:

k:\digital camera\stored pictures (DVD 1)\Older sorted by category\trips\Trip at the Pass - January 2003\



I don't get a chance to be part of the Three Amigos very often. Yet undoubtedly a camera records the event when it happens. I think we all look better now than we did 7.5 years ago!

Old Friends from High School

I'm pretty sure I put this photo on Facebook after Bret's surprise 50th birthday party at his house in Ballard, WA last summer. Yet, I can't shake the feeling that Facebook fits somewhere between Twitter and my blog.

Twitter is all about immediacy and its information only concerns the current moment. There is no past there.

Whereas I hope my eJournal and images, is more permanent. I frequently impress myself with the uncanny ability to check facts and feelings from years past. I don't want to boast, but I doubt there are many others who have posted daily for as many years as I have. I am not even going to pursue a method for removing my Blogspot navigation bar. I find the web pages created 'on the fly' from the very top of the screen can be just as useful as the search box on the page itself.

So although many Facebook friends may have already seen this image, by adding it here, I'm trying to make it a more lasting part of the story of my life.

Not Only the Weather's from Hawaii

It is hot again here but that's not the only thing that was making me think of Hawaii. I got the nicest email yesterday from Bret Wirta. We're not in constant contact but when we do see each other it's as if no time has passed. We have that type of friendship.

"The Wirta family is here on vacation in one of our favorite places, Hawaii. What a paradise it is! Though we’re a society of the jet age, it still amazes me that we can board a plane in Seattle were it was dark, pouring rain and in the forties and six hours latter walk off on the tarmac to hot sunshine and throaty birdsong. We’re on the big island of Hawaii where here on the lee side it’s very dry and rocky but (thankfully) warm and sunny."

He wrote lots of other details and thoughts. I felt very lucky to have been the intended audience.

He mentioned about the sheer longevity of my eJournal and images. It is true he was mentioned in its very first week in September 2003. One of the advantages of online material is it can be shifted, sorted, and reorganized easily. For example, I will put a photo of Bret and son, and then it can be part of a special page of his entries that goes back to that initial one. This most recent photo was taken a half year ago at a surprise birthday party for Bret's 50th.

With Age Comes Wisdom

Why does a weekend, even if made into a three-day one, go so quickly?

We had to head back to New Westminster, BC. We weren't in a big rush but needed to get moving before 10:30 am. We had an appointment at 1:45 in Seattle. Of course that is directly where we switch from I-90 west to I-5 North.

We zoomed out of the Wenas on a dirt road rather than going around the longer way up the South Canyon Road. There were three cars heading in that direction. One of the Thomas's vehicles had to be dropped off at their place at Snoqualmie Pass and my Ranger is really not big enough for passengers other than Jay and me.

One main reason for our trip south was that we'd be able to stop in on Sunday afternoon for a surprise party for Bret. Lynne's parents, she, Joel, and Ben were going too. Bret will soon be 50 years old. He will finally catch up to me age-wise next month. His wife and daughter organized a great surprise party for him. Bret was almost at a loss for words; something that probably doesn't often happen.

We left at around 4:15 and got home a little after 7 o'clock.

My Past and Bit Before It

Today allowed me time to recall a few connections to my past.

Last October, I created a Facebook group for people who've graduated from my original hometown of Sunapee, NH. School staff and interested people are encouraged to participate as well. Since last fall almost 300 people have joined the Virtual Sunapee Reunion 2. It is a great place for people to reconnect with old classmates or to organize events such as reunions. I recently realized that one of the members was trying to organize events for a fiftieth high school reunion and that it would've been my mother's class. As my mom passed away in 1981, I have a difficult time picturing her as an older lady. The person spearheading the reunion for the group had posted a few old scans too. I noticed my mother in a photo. Her name was Martha Osgood.


The caption says, "1958. We were in Boston for some event.
Anyone remember why? Marty, Harriet, Karli, Dotty, Joanne"
Okay, so that was the day's first connection to the past. Then, when I went to the mailbox after work, I had an envelope from Bret Wirta's company. Inside there was a copy of the summer 2009 issue of the SooNipi Magazine. SooNipi was the original spelling of the place I grew up. In the langauge of the Algonquian Indians, it meant something akin to 'waters where wild geese land'. The spelling is now just plain old, Sunapee. I knew that Bret had been writing an article on The Harbor Gameroom. Sure enough, there it was. I hope to eventually get permission to scan the interesting four pages of text and photographs. Nice job, Bret!

Not Exactly a Muscle Car

I've commented here in the past that I didn't have a single picture of my first car. I mean .. cough .. Ford Pinto. As a very young kid, I used to enjoy taking photos but for some reason I didn't during my high school or college years. I have no graphic record of so many things.

Just yesterday, Bret stepped up to the plate. High school buddy and former business partner in our summer arcade during college, he recently uploaded a batch of photos to facebook. And in among them, was this yellowish wonder.


By the looks, this was taken after high school. I can only surmise this because of the condition of the car. As a senior in high school, a group of friends and I flipped it over a stonewall and into the woods one night. My father, as punishment, wouldn't let me fix and run it during part of my first year in college. I have no comments about the windshield-sized glasses I was wearing, the foolish grin, nor the t-shirt that'd probably only fit around my left arm nowadays.

Back East, Back When

Just like that teetering old bloke in the rocking chair, sometimes I cannot quite recall what I've talked about. I find it difficult to remember whether or not I've said things here. I don't really mind repeating myself, I guess. Sometimes, when I do a search or check by tag labels, I surprise myself by not having written on certain events or topics too. I don't really mind repeating myself, see?

The point that prompted all this babbling today, was I got an unexpected note from an old high school classmate. Crystal Gareau is in Maine. I have had no contact with Crystal for at least six years. The last time I saw many of my classmates from Sunapee, New Hampshire was at a class reunion in 2002.

The event took place a year before I started blogging; therefore, the details I found here were rather vague. The few entries that mentioned it did not include this class photo taken at Mitchell Latva's house in Georges Mills. (Click it to see an alternative, larger image.) Our class only had 33 members when we graduated in 1977. In the picture above we were trying to re-create the placement of individuals from a graduation photo.

By the way, in the photo, Crystal is sitting on the ground, second to the left.

A Reason to Go to the Harbor

This weekend I got a message from Bret. He's the premiere reason that another buddy, Joel, and I were able to run a summer arcade business in my hometown of Sunapee, New Hampshire. Those were the years right after we'd graduated from high school. Bret was recently asked to write up a story for a locally-published magazine. Of course, in 2008, the request was to record the significance of those activities in a historical perspective. By a strange twist of circumstance we have separately all ended up as residents a few hundred miles of each other but near the other ocean. Bret's email was to ask whether Joel or I had any quotes to offer.

I have, on occasion, difficulty remembering what I had for dinner on the previous evening, so I am skeptical about how much I might be able to add to events of thirty years ago. I did a few searches on the Internet to see if I could locate any photos that would help to remind me of Sunapee Harbor in that bygone era. The only pictures, I could dig up were those that I'd contributed to the Internet myself. I modified this picture which Bret had once taken. It was originally in Kodacolor but all but the yellow dye had faded; therefore, I converted it to black and white.

It shows the most important part of what I can recall. The picture does show a young Joel and me. A significant aspect is that another classmate, Sherry Simms seems to be hard at work with maintenance too. She would not have been a paid employee but was among the others who simply wanted to hang out. During those summers of operation, we offered such a place for many of the kids in town too. In those days the school system or town offered fewer programs to occupy youths' time. We were left to our own devices. Luckily, Bret saw the need as a business opportunity. I don't think it was as much about the money as a way to provide a fun atmosphere for not only the three of us. We gave many Sunapee residents, who were under twenty, a reason to come up to the harbor.

Image Conscious

I'll admit I can remember Pong on a home TV. Yet, as mentioned in my eJournal and images before, most of my game playing experience occurred when friends and I ran an arcade during the summers of my college days. That was the late 1970's and early 1980's. I remember shooting at tanks from inside a virtual world of vector graphics in Atari's Battlezone. This would've been the original, stand-up cabinet where the player looked through a periscope. I knew that even thin green lines in 3-D sure seemed to beat out the coloured, but flat, images on the Pacman machines.



For years and years after that I didn't play games.

I did toy with an original xbox which is still in a closet here somewhere. We used it to play DVDs for a while and I spent a few hours impressed with Voodoo Vince.

Today, I spent most of the morning looking at trailers for the Sony PS3. This time things seem right for a fit to the Onkyo home theatre sound and the 42" Toshiba LCD. Although I'm thinking about buying one primarily for playing Blu-ray movies, if it's all connected, I will probably end up exploring a few game titles too. The Playstation 3 isn't known for having many good games at present: however, I expect the number will increase through 2008.



Yikes, we've gone beyond basic, wire frame graphics in the last 28 years, haven't we?

Rack 'Em Up

What a blustery day! I'm happy there's no class today due to it being a 3-day weekend for many businesses in Canada. The rain and wind started in the middle of the night. The noise woke me up. Even our gas fireplace blows out from the force and angle of the wind. Although it's mid-morning it hasn't let up. So, it is a suitable day just to hang around and watch DVD's, review email, and blog.

Last week, when I discussed games, I talked about old-school arcade machines. I even located an Internet photo of Xenon, the pinball machine for that entry. And wouldn't you know that Bret was able to scrounge up an actual photo from Sunapee, NH! Here's a scanned image from the Harbor Gameroom circa 1980.

Back When Games Were Games

Earlier this morning, I was looking at the my eJournal and images page which showcases my games label.

I guess I'm now old enough to be a little nostalgic.

I hear about game titles like BioShock in popular media but I've never been much of a first-person shooter. Although it must be said that I had a 22 rifle as a teenager. I even became quite good at skeet shooting with a 12-gauge. These were real life situations with family though. I just cannot seem to get too excited about buying into any of the modern gaming consoles. In fact, my old, original XBOX actually sits in a box.

I was a happy, however, to re-visit an old link I had entered in September 2003. It pointed to www.flippers.com. It seems to be a local Vancouver company and although the guy's no stunning web designer, it's the content that I found so very appealing.

As mentioned here previously, two high-school friends and I had an arcade in our little hometown of Sunapee, NH decades ago. It was the industry's turning point from mechanical to electronic. Pacman, Space Invaders, and Galaxian were fun to play but there was nothing better than the selinoid-thumping, electro-mechanical sounds of a real pinball machine.

I'd own a vintage example today were it not for a 725 sq ft apartment and the $2000 to $3000 price tag for an average setup. I bet it'd be much more for a mint conditon Bally Xenon. After all, that suductive female voice coaxing a player to "try a tube shot" could catipult just about anyone back into one's adolescence. And how much is that worth?