Learning to create MORE digital files!

Regarding my parents' anniversary (72 years), my Dad is 92, and my Mom is 90. Married young! 

I have to tell you a story about my Dad. For the most part, he has been getting around pretty well - no cane, a replaced hip, and a knee, but lots of aches and pains - darn arthritis. And he still drives himself to "work" (the Museum), where he volunteers rebuilding stationary engines. If he can't find the part, he makes it. I see him slowing down and often does the supervising rather than the work, certainly anything heavy. 

Before Christmas, he started having some severe back pain, as he had had occasionally in the past. He went to a chiropractor and a masseuse, but nothing helped. He got pressure point therapy, and that seemed to be the trick. 

Yes - he had an X-ray and some other scans, and finally a visit to the doctor - long wait for an appointment. Anyway, he was NOT going to work during that time. BTW - one doctor he saw in the clinic told him, after looking at the X-ray, that he had arthritis and that was part of growing old. My Dad was furious. How can you have no back pain one day, and then suddenly you have pain? That is NOT arthritis! He must have pulled a muscle badly, causing a pinched nerve or something. 

But there is my Dad, walking in the garage of their apartment building EVERY DAY to get some exercise. He even walked with a cane, standing UPRIGHT, not slouching. Four lengths of the garage in the morning and three in the afternoon. I guess a length means to the end and back! Why not the hallway? It doesn't matter - he is exercising!

It turns out that his muscles are so tight (where have I heard that before?), and he is trying to keep things loose. Instead of throwing in the towel, this guy does not want to give up his independence!! So I believe his goal is to be back to work on Monday! I have a good role model to follow, and thank goodness for pressure point massage!

But there is an essential lesson in there, especially for me. Posture is important!! As we grow older, gravity wants to make us shorter, and all that compresses on our backs. Stand up!!! Oh god -- I need to remember that each and every minute of every day!

I did a bit more in the digital clean-up aisles and am making good progress on sorting a folder called "download from laptop." 

You always get some idea of how many files by the little scroll bar on the right-hand side of the Windows file manager screen. Well, the little bar was so little, you could barely see it!! It's a bit bigger now, but there are still many files to delete or move. 

I can barely see the little scroll bar

It's actually kind of therapeutic to work on those files, and my goal now is to empty the external drive on my main computer and, in the future, only work from the two smaller hard drives. The other hard drive has been around for a while, and it's probably time to retire it! Then I'll continue separating the files on those two new drives into their categories (photos and sewing), which could take a while. Then it'll simply be a matter of taking each folder, sorting it, and deleting it. But first, I'll work on my embroidery files. 

I am STUNNED by the number of embroidery files that I'm moving. Random ones -- what are they? Anything I need/want to keep? I'm not dealing with that at this point, but will open up the software at some point and start looking and probably deleting! 

Then I went downstairs to quilt that quilt of mine. It was a quilt from hell, or at least it was at the beginning. 

I went to advance the quilt to get started, and NOTHING. The motor, operated by this foot pedal, was dead. WHAT? OH -- the plug was partially out of the wall, and then it worked! 

The motor that drives this foot pedal was not plugged in properly

 I'm using Minky for the back, which is 62 inches wide, and my quilt is 60½" wide, so I had to babysit the thing - at least along the edges. Oops - a wee bit of selvage got in at some point, but that's OK. It's polyester and isn't going anywhere! 

A very tight fit!

Then I had issues with the thread breaking. The long arm handled the first two rows without problems. I started the third row, and the thread broke. WHAT? We can't have that. I was using a thicker-than-normal thread, so the tension wasn't quite right. I loosened it a bit, and that worked. But why did it work on the first two rows? It didn't break after I loosened the tension. Thankfully, my machine and I have a good relationship regarding tension. I simply go by how it pulls through those tension disks! An acquired skill to be sure! 

And then my machine seems to struggle to move on rare moments. I think a belt needs tightening. Anyway, it didn't move properly in one spot, but I was right there, so I fixed it and was on my way. There is one small glitch in the quilt, but I doubt anyone will notice it. What I hate is that I questioned the glitch, and I could have fixed it right there, but I didn't. It had to do with not moving properly. Oh well, it'll be fine!

But after those minor issues, the rest of the quilt, except babysitting those edges, went like a charm. I didn't get the binding on, as I decided to hand deliver the quilt on Saturday, so it'll get there before it would if I mailed it. I'll bind it later today. 

It was such a nice day, and Senior's Day at Bulk Barn, so I took a walk to the mall. On my way, I stopped at Homesense because someone had told me they are selling Tupperware now! And yes -- they are.l But where are the old colors? Where is that harvest gold? 

Tupperware at Homesense

I was on the lookout for a specific container, but I didn't see it. So I didn't buy anything. I'm getting so good at walking into a store and not buying anything! 

The real deal!!

But seriously - that weather was terrific. It was still cold (minus 8), but with the sun, it felt warm, and I even took my hat off!!!

The public library offers many free programs, and I went to one last night. I actually discovered a whole lot of stuff at the library last night. But I didn't bring anything home because I have an overdue book, and I can't use my card right now. YES - I need to get that book back!

Anyway, this was all about converting different types of media into digital formats. Yep -- so I can fill that hard drive with photo stuff!!! We learned how easy it is to transfer VHS, DVD/CD, slides, and negatives. Oh - we also talked about audio cassettes and video camera cassettes. 

Transferring slides into digital

When I got home, I realized I'd forgotten to ask about scanning photos. I have a lot of that to do, and I need to figure out the best way to make that happen. 

But it was hilarious because I had mentioned using a 3½" computer disk, and I still have that drive at home and am not willing to get rid of it yet. I still have some embroidery files on 3½" disks and need to transfer them, but not at this point. 

There were four of us in the room, an older gentleman and I. There was another person, and a library staff member, both younger. I'm not even going to guess their ages. So the staff member got out the 3½" drive and put a disk into it. He said, "I have no idea what type of files these are", and he couldn't open any of them. 

The younger guy, who kept repeating himself but was obviously a gamer/geek, spotted a file called SimCity, and we noticed the extensions were PSN. Oh yes—then we went down the rabbit hole of computer games, and the younger ones couldn't believe this was how games used to be sold! The older gentleman, probably around my age, and I had a good discussion about games. Anyway, we finally got the young guy calmed down because he was convinced it was a pirated copy. It turns out the disk was labeled "SIMCITY". It was a legit disk. 

So now that I know those resources are there, I have stuff to transfer, but I'm not going there yet. Some of my videos were transferred from VHS to DVD a while back, but even those now need to be transferred to those external hard drives. That's part of the office clean-up, as those are sitting in a box on the desk. 

It was nice to see all the things we can do, and it's better to get them into digital format sooner rather than later. And for me, it all needs to be in two spots! Either one of those hard drives. Then I devise a backup plan, and I'm good to go. I asked, and both other customers suggested OneDrive and syncing. NO FLIPPING WAY -- that's part of my problem, not understanding it and having everything sync back to my hard drive. Perhaps I need to learn how to use that correctly, but I prefer to keep my stuff offline, except for the immediate working files, because of Microsoft's autosave function. 

I had a chuckle when I got a note from OneDrive saying they'd noticed I'd deleted a lot of files. You bet and more to go!!!

Anyway, I'm not going down that rabbit hole. The bottom line is that there is still a lot of work to be done!

And on that note, I'm out of here. I have a date with Brooke this morning, and my knee is a bit sore. Not sure what's going on there, but I'm sure she'll figure out some form of torture for me. And by the time I get there, I'm sure it'll be loosened up! 

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!