Economy Size Geek

Basically just to give you an idea of what a Linux dork I am - I got thefor MythTV (which I haven’t had the time to get up and running) because it is highly recommended and supported by a huge community. Well I have a bunch of VHS tapes of home movies and what not that I would like to have on DVD. It didn’t even occur to me that not only would the card work under windows - that windows is the only offically supported os from the manufacturer - which is like DUH - but it took me a while to figure this out since I’m not used to doing anything under windows besides playing games, surfing, and programming my Replay TV.

So I dusted off a VCR and got it all hooked up (SVideo no less). I opened a drawer and picked up the first tape - WTF ? Why is Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in here - where are all my home movies. You see I used to be a video tape fiend - I have over 500 of them in my house. In an attempt to fight off my inate pack rattishness I threw them almost all out. Except for the personal stuff. So I’m standing there in my lab thinking - “Oh my god - I threw out all my home movies!” Turns out they were in a box tucked away so it’s all good.

A couple of things about this process -

1. Get a good VCR - I found one in the stack that had S-Video out - that’s all the better
2. Get a good head cleaner - I need to do this
3. Get ready to spend some time - capture hapens in real time (meaning it takes a long time to convert)
4. Once you’re done - get a good editing/DVD layout prog - because you’re going to need that too - I’m a big fan of Vegas from Sony.

The biggest problem for me is that a number of the tapes have valuable content on them (c.f. A couple of very geeky new years parties) mixed in with random movies and recorded television. So most of my time has been spent figuring out what is on the tape and setting it up to capture.

I had my oddest experience to date last night. I found this news report. They were talking about the economy and Alan Greenspan. I thought it was a very odd thing to have recorded - I didn’t really get into economics until college (That’s actually what my degree is in) Then in the middle of the story - they shift to “And now lets here from a local economist” - and up pops my dad. He was teaching a class (He was an Economics professor (among other things) at a small Catholic college in Indiana). They interviewed him about what he thought about Greenspan’s Monetary policy. This was all part of the build up to the first Gulf War.

My dad died in Jan. 8th, 1999. In books and movies, they always have a character talk about how they can’t remember what their dead realative looks like anymore. Kind of the idea that over time they just get fuzzy as part of letting go and moving on. I don’t know if it’s just because I have picutres or what - but he’s never faded from my mind in a visual sense. That’s what made this so odd. I realized as I listened to him talk to the reported that what had become fuzzy was how he sounded. From time to time I catch me or my brother saying things that he either did say or would have said - but his voice was his own.

And here looking at this 30 second clip I remembered all that. And realized that not only did he miss the rocket ship that has been my company’s rise to the top of the heap (We got funding on Dec 28 1998), but that now he’ll miss my wedding in April. Which is one of those things I’ve always known but never really thought about because for most of my life the idea of getting married has been a hazy thing at best. So although I have been transferring over 3 hours of footage of his funeral in Indiana and at Arlington National cememtery, it wasn’t as affecting to me emotionally as watching my dad talk about the economic levers Greenspan has at his disposal to control the flow of money in the economy.