Must be a record, wanted to see a house, made tour request at 11:30am, house gone before noon...

matthewsx said:
Yeah, pictures are the worst. You never know if you're getting rid of some bit of the past that future generations will want to see, and since it's all printed on paper it takes way too much time and space to keep it all. I should probably organize my digital life (did scan a bunch of my stuff too while I was at it). Notes on what you're looking at are super helpful so capturing them is important.

A good friend clued me in on this scanner that does batches and scans both sides at once.

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FastFoto FF-680W Wireless High-speed Photo Scanning System | Products | Epson US

Preserve what’s priceless with the Epson® FastFoto FF-680W — the World’s Fastest Personal Photo Scanner1. Scan thousands of photos — as fast as 1 photo per second2. Easily restore, save, organize and share photos, postcards, panoramas, documents and more. The convenient mobile app3 enables you...
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I bought the refurb unit so it was a little cheaper but still expensive. I had probably a dozen boxes of photos to go through and there was no way I could sort/edit them in the time I had to do it so I just scanned everything and uploaded it to a google drive where my cousin (the family historian) can look through them. Physical prints went to my sister. I still find the scanner useful for documents and such so I'm holding onto it, really does a better job than the MFC.

The act of going through it all did bring more perspective and some comfort. My mom is still alive but past being able to talk about things, so I guess this, and memories are what I have left.

John
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I literally have well over 5000 slides, plus at least 6 cubic feet of photos. Many are in fragile albums that will disintegrate if I pull out the photos. Most of the labor would be just removing the photos from the albums or slides from boxes, or carousels, and preserving the order. Most photos are undated, so order in the album is the only information I have for relative dating. Quite a few are mounted photos which don't lend themselves to scanning directly. Found slides that don't show their processing date, it's all part of the puzzle. Oh have some 8mm film videos too. Don't even have a way to view them.

Feels like it's a minimum of half a year of labor and I'm struggling to see why it should be my mission. Very mixed feelings.

But I don't have much time for contemplating now, there's more work to be done whether I like it or not. Have to go back at it.
 
I suppose what I could use is an archivist for all these photos, perhaps? Dunno.

My brother in law was an archivist for the City of Boston. He got to see and retrieve the old, old documents dating from the 1600's. Remember him talking excitedly about seeing an original document from Cotton Mather. (Salem Witch trial fame/infamy. Admitted to Harvard at age 11.) Unfortunately, my B-I-L passed. Miss him in more ways than one.
 
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Well, it might just be moving the archive intact. My wife was tired of me moving this stuff, probably 4 times since we've been married and many more before then.

Might be worth asking around the younger generation to see if anyone is into genealogy. Those are often the ones who value old photos to put faces with the names.

John
 
matthewsx said:
Well, it might just be moving the archive intact. My wife was tired of me moving this stuff, probably 4 times since we've been married and many more before then.

Might be worth asking around the younger generation to see if anyone is into genealogy. Those are often the ones who value old photos to put faces with the names.

John
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At the moment, quasi intact is the best I can do. It's just that every new box has mixed up stuff. Mislabeled file folders, you name it.

In one thin folder I found things that spanned 60 years, with zero relationship to each other. A small laminated baby picture of me, a luggage tag from the Tokyo Hilton, a Christmas card from the grandchildren of neighbors, and stuff that's only a decade old. Not located with similar stuff, just tossed in at random, in random locations. I didn't randomly pack it initially, the internal contents of each folder was as I found it.

Back in 2024, had to make quick decisions what to keep and discard. We retained maybe 6% of the contents, between all the family members. I got "stuck" with the paper records since I was the trustee. Unfortunately that's a lot of bulky heavy boxes, which have taken over parts of the house for the past two years. I can't wait to deep six most of them. I am the only qualified person to decide what gets tossed, which is a bit of a burden to be honest. My sister would be able to help, but she lives too far away and at this point, there's barely room for me to work, since there's boxes everywhere. Later, I'm going to be sending her a few pictures, since she's pretty good at recognizing faces, but that's after the move

Any bit of paper with personal information gets my final stink eye before going to the shredder. Once it's gone, I can't get it back, there's no Mission Impossible crew piecing back the evidence. I find this kind of effort tiring, since it requires 100% attention, all the time.

In some ways it's like machining, but in the shop, I can walk away from it when my attention is flagging. Here, I have to keep on going, since my move date is coming up.

I have 1.5 more boxes of the "rents" stuff to go. These last ones have been weird, though. One good thing, I found a letter that gives me a clue about an overseas relative, or rather, their son. The son would be 51 now, so there's a chance of finding him. Possibly his parents are still alive. I have their names and address, albeit the address is 49 years old, I think.

Got to keep at it. At least the volume is reducing. The last box, I was able to discard 75% of it, box before was more than 80% discard. Don't know if I can finish this part today, but I'm going to make a run for it. Looks like another aspirin day, the bending over routine is hurting my back.
 
matthewsx said:
Hang in there, you will get through it all.
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I'm beginning to wonder how I'll make it through this move... Certainly driving me nuts. Every day packing, OMG what is that, oh I didn't know I had that, jeepers why do I have that still? Aspirin is barely keeping the soreness away.

Finally got to the shop. Been boxing up the small stock, in small boxes, goodness that weighs a ton! Packing accessories for the lathe and mill. I have 1 cu ft boxes, they are 50-60 lbs. Did a 1.5 cu ft box, I'm leaving it there for now. The 3 ft stock can go in the mailing tubes. The 1-2 ft stuff, I don't know how to manage it. I'll let the movers figure that out. Getting tired with this clean out. Just have to tell myself that I'm going closer to my grandchildren, and I'll have a much nicer shop. Lately, I had to tell myself that 3 times today. This morning, for the first time, I sort of shook involuntarily, wondering what I got myself into. That's never happened, guess it's the anxiety of it all.

Mover is weird. I have this massive weight estimate, with a matching bill, but no written confirmation that they are actually moving my small lathes and mill. When I had the physical walk through, I told them how much they weighed. But there's no line item or even comment. Could be a) they won't move it, or b) it's euphemistically called something else, or c) none of the above. I'd hate to rig this myself. Think I used up my good friend points last time. And going uphill out of a basement is a bit harder...

Oh, the mover didn't have my destination address correct. It's taken a couple of tries to correct it. Hopefully third time is the charm. They wanted payment via CC and I told them, my limit is far under that. Then they asked for a bank check, and I said, I can't do that, our local branch closed. Finally they mentioned wiring funds. I'm ok with that, but it's a worry point - got to get that right, because if one screws up, it's real hard to recover from. Wire fraud is a thing...

Tomorrow is my 70th birthday and it's still looking like a lot of hard labor for me :(. Have to pack a suitcase, and an important stuff box. (And find the keys to the new place! Found them! ) Notional mover packing day #1 is starting this Thursday, if all of this goes to plan.
 
Well, the movers are here. They arrived at 8am and started. Just two packers right now, so not too many folks in the house, which makes it easier to move about and still be productive. I've been going nonstop since 7:30am, I need to take a break for lunch.

They won't move liquor or wine, it's not really a surprise, but more a pain in the neck. I'm not leaving my 18YRO single malt scotch behind! Anyways back to work. Need to look at areas that they haven't gotten to yet to avoid any weird surprises. Found old junk that I took out to the trash cans, which are now full. It's weird to see old papers with social security numbers on them - back then companies thought nothing of printing them out full on documents - had to shred them.

Packed some suitcases, because everything else is going to be packed up soon. Needed to grab my meds, toothpaste, floss, etc to make sure I get some grace period on the other end.
 
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