Change 17 - Backup Home Videos

I have decided to backup home videos from MiniDV to an external hard drive.

I have three kids.  As you can imagine, I’ve spent quite a lot of time videotaping them.  I have hours and hours of footage, sitting on MiniDV tapes and I need to move that video from those tapes to some other storage media.  In the past, I’ve made a few DVDs, but I want to backup the files on a giant external hard drive.

I have just ordered a pair of 500 GB drives and a 4-pin to 4-pin firewire cable.  I’ll begin to transfer videos as soon as theses items arrive.  (My new laptop requires a 4-pin adapter.)

I don’t know a whole lot about video transfer and compression, but I think I know enough to copy the files from the MiniDV tapes to the hard drive.  Any input would be appreciated.

Change 14 - Remove Clutter From Trunk

I have decided to remove the clutter from the trunk of my car.

Like many people, I spend a lot of time in my car.  Somehow, I’ve allowed the trunk of my car to become a “catch all”.  Right now, I have golf clubs, tennis rackets, a football, kids’ toys, and a ton of other stuff in my trunk.  Having all of this stuff in the trunk decreases my gas mileage - and when I go to the grocery store, I have to put the groceries in the back seat.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll clean out the trunk and do something with all of the junk that is in it.  There’s no excuse for having all that stuff rattling around when I’m driving.  Enough!

Change 12 - Organize Photos

I have decided to organize my photos.

Like most people who live in the age of the digital camera, I have hundreds of photographs that need to be organized, archived, and printed.  I have photos on three different computers, several CD-Roms, and various media cards.  I’ll begin by copying all photos to an external hard drive.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll sort through the photos, label them, and print out the ones that catch my eye.  I’ll also copy several of the photos to an online photo storage account.