Mr. and Mrs. Bubba McD
It is my yearly December task to start burning our home videos onto a dvd. This task is made challenging by the fact that our video camera does not record in a format that our computer's dvd program recognizes. Which means I must spend hours downloading all the clips onto our computer, then I must spend hours converting all the clips to an acceptable format, THEN I must spend hours importing all the properly-formated clips into the dvd program. After all that is done, it is only a matter of hours upon hours of sorting through all the clips to edit them, add titles and chapter breaks, and create the photo slideshow that goes along with the yearly dvd.
God, it sucks being a perfectionist.
(And, on a side note, how is it even frickin' possible to be a perfectionist when one is also inherently lazy?)
My task this year is made a little simpler by the fact that Mr. C
is now a year older. As any parent can tell you, as each year progresses, the amount of videos of your kid will be reduced by approximately seventy percent compared to the previous year. Which means I only have about ten more years of spending all of December and January submerged in my computer's dvd program!! And only five years after that of spending all of December in front of the computer!!! And only five years after that of just a few weeks there!!!! And then, damn it, the grandkids will come along, and I will be back to square one!!!!!
While I'm busily working on the 2011 videos, Mr. C's been immersed in 2010's videos. And it's been absolutely amazing to see all the crap we've recorded. Two minutes of baby Mr. C's first successful attempt at buckling himself into his high chair. Three minutes and sixteen seconds of him trotting sticks between his dad at the fireplace and me in the kitchen. A minute and ten seconds of him playing hide-and-seek behind a kitchen potholder. A full minute of him operating the lettuce spinner.
A minute may not sound like much, and it was absolutely fascinating at the time, but -- as each year passes and Mr. C's mental and physical prowess progresses -- these tiny achievements seem better-suited to a fifteen-second clip rather than a multiple-minute chapter.
What's worse yet is when Bee and S.B. got ahold of the camera and spent even longer documenting themselves doing . . . nothing. Staring at the camera; fiddling with the controls; making odd faces and even odder noises: nothing. And I had to download, convert, import, and edit these down . . . but still keep them. They are, after all, inexplicably important to the men of the house, and -- although I'm struggling with it -- I recognize that these little 'slices of life' are clips we'll probably be happy to have in a few years. Or, in the least, they'll be happy to have. THEY didn't have to spend the wee hours of December and January wading through them.
For your viewing pleasure, I have created a YouTube account and uploaded one of my favorite home videos to it. It was recorded pre-Mr. C, and is -- I'm sure you'll agree -- a cinematic gem. And, considering how long it took me to upload it, it will be a very rare public insight into our private lives.
Enjoy!
God, it sucks being a perfectionist.
(And, on a side note, how is it even frickin' possible to be a perfectionist when one is also inherently lazy?)
My task this year is made a little simpler by the fact that Mr. C
is now a year older. As any parent can tell you, as each year progresses, the amount of videos of your kid will be reduced by approximately seventy percent compared to the previous year. Which means I only have about ten more years of spending all of December and January submerged in my computer's dvd program!! And only five years after that of spending all of December in front of the computer!!! And only five years after that of just a few weeks there!!!! And then, damn it, the grandkids will come along, and I will be back to square one!!!!!
While I'm busily working on the 2011 videos, Mr. C's been immersed in 2010's videos. And it's been absolutely amazing to see all the crap we've recorded. Two minutes of baby Mr. C's first successful attempt at buckling himself into his high chair. Three minutes and sixteen seconds of him trotting sticks between his dad at the fireplace and me in the kitchen. A minute and ten seconds of him playing hide-and-seek behind a kitchen potholder. A full minute of him operating the lettuce spinner.
A minute may not sound like much, and it was absolutely fascinating at the time, but -- as each year passes and Mr. C's mental and physical prowess progresses -- these tiny achievements seem better-suited to a fifteen-second clip rather than a multiple-minute chapter.
What's worse yet is when Bee and S.B. got ahold of the camera and spent even longer documenting themselves doing . . . nothing. Staring at the camera; fiddling with the controls; making odd faces and even odder noises: nothing. And I had to download, convert, import, and edit these down . . . but still keep them. They are, after all, inexplicably important to the men of the house, and -- although I'm struggling with it -- I recognize that these little 'slices of life' are clips we'll probably be happy to have in a few years. Or, in the least, they'll be happy to have. THEY didn't have to spend the wee hours of December and January wading through them.
For your viewing pleasure, I have created a YouTube account and uploaded one of my favorite home videos to it. It was recorded pre-Mr. C, and is -- I'm sure you'll agree -- a cinematic gem. And, considering how long it took me to upload it, it will be a very rare public insight into our private lives.
Enjoy!
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