Countdown to Christmas V

#It’s just eight days till Christmas… I hope my true love gives to me…

A closet without clutter.#

One of the side benefits of preserving one’s recorded memories is the fact that the size of a digital footprint is infinitely smaller than what we’ve been carting around with us for years.

Nobody wants to throw videotapes, photo albums, film canisters, or carousels of slides away. The very thought of it sends shivers down the spine. They are, after all, the analog shells of all the memories they contain. The downside is that they take up so much space. But, as we move, we continue to drag them from house to house, oftentimes without ever opening the seals of the crates and boxes we keep them in. Because deep down we realize that if we ever lost them, those memories would be gone forever.

By digitalizing them, we not only have reduced the amount of storage space needed for those memories, we gain the flexibility of keeping extra copies off site – like in a safety deposit box or fireproof safe – for added security.

I once asked my wife what she would want me to grab from the house in the case of a fire. She responded, “my pictures.” It struck me that this would not be an easy task. She keeps her slides and photo albums in a 6 foot cedar chest that probably weighs 350 pounds. To “grab” that as I escape a burning building would no doubt result in my last act on this planet.

A single thumb drive that one could slip inside a pocket is capable of containing every picture in every photo album in your house. It is the best solution to the dreadful prospect of “memories lost” that there is.

Michael Ondrasik and Home Video Studio specialize in the preservation of family memories. For more information, call 352-735-8550 or visit www.homevideostudio.com/mtd