Progress ... who needs it?

I am applauding myself (and the Wizard) for our foresight in neither investing in 8-tracks NOR in Beta-format video tapes.

This was another three-box day, but since I didn't start until after I put my supper in the oven and I was finished (and had time to send some emails) before supper was done, it should be obvious that these boxes were not very taxing.


More of the same. A bag of pine cones, saved for craft projects; a bunch of file folders to go in the filing cabinet; some kitty toys and treats; modeling clay; a sweater that the Drama Queen left behind; two bags of hair.

Two BAGS of hair? Ahh.... those must be from the time the boys decided to let their hair grow out and then cut it off for Locks of Love. Only problem is ... their hair wasn't really long enough when they got fed up with long hair and had it chopped off. The haircutter didn't have the heart to tell them, so she bagged it up anyway and gave it to me.

Since that didn't take very long, I thought I would go out into the garage and pick another project for tomorrow. Instead, I got sidetracked by these:


Two boxes AND a case full of cassette tapes. Like most people of our generation, the Wizard and I have dutifully upgraded from LPs to cassette tapes (cleverly skipping the 8-track era) to CDs to iPods. But we didn't replace every cassette tape we had with CDs. And, somewhere along the line, we thought it might be nice to have some of these cassette tapes on the iPods. So we acquired a tape-to-PC machine so that we could create digital copies of the cassette tapes.

What we didn't quite realize at the time is that converting the cassette tapes to digital format requires that you listen to the tape -- i.e., it has to be played live, and paused between tracks, and sometimes you even have to fill in the track names and so on. In other words, this is not a completely painless process.

I'm thinking that, on top of the box, bag, shelf, or pile a day, I had also better add a tape conversion a day. Otherwise, when we move past mp3s to whatever comes next, I'll still be sitting around with a big box of cassette tapes. (At least they are not 8-tracks!)

And in the interests of family harmony, we are NOT going to talk about the boxes of VHS tapes that are in the storage locker. Nope, not going to do it. Not tonight, anyway. Even though we all know that the DVDs that replaced the VHS tapes are also on their way out. (At least we never bought a Betamax!)