Home Again, Home Again

So I went down to Calgary this weekend to help my mom pack up her basement. She's moving to a [very small] town about an hour and a half from Edmonton, but this new house has no basement. So in addition to putting things in boxes, we also went through boxes to see if there was anything I could utilize here in Edmonton, wanted for sentimental reasons, or that belonged to me in the first place.

I'm not quite sure how I've managed to find room for everything I brought back, but I seem to be doing okay. I brought back a retro receiver to tide me over until I can get a more modern one. So I now have more oompha coming from my television, as I have attached external speakers (which were also brought up from Calgary). I also have a record player, but have not yet hooked it up to the receiver. I was not quite in the mood to listen to Fraggles this evening, which is pretty much my option given the few records I own. I think I might have Sharon, Lois & Bram, too.

I have also become the keeper of the audio-visual media. I obtained the hard copies for all our home videos and my dad's family home videos--some dating back to as early as 1956 (my dad would have been almost four years old). The fun part is that I also got the movie projector and movie screen, so I could totally go back and watch old home videos the "old fashioned" way! I also acquired the 8mm movie camera that my dad used to use in the 70's/80's, as well as three cameras (one video, two photo) that my grandma used to own. The video one requires being wound up to generate the motor, and the video running time lasts about a minute after winding it full up. Of the photo cameras, one is a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, which you hold at roughly belly button level and look down into a little mirror as the view finder. It gives you a backwards image, but I guess that's what you dealt with back then. And then there's the Jiffy Kodak 620, which has a lens that pops out like an accordion. I haven't yet figured out where the view finder is. None of these cameras has film, but I'd be interested to know if I can obtain some somewhere... like e-bay or something. One of the accessories that will be neat to experiment with is this projector lamp I got. Innocent-looking enough, but I plugged it in, turned it on, and I swear I could land planes with this thing, it's so bright. It will be neat, though, to see the lighting effects I can get.

Of course, with all this fun stuff, I did have to take back my Ex Box--AKA the large Rubbermaid-style bin I used to store marriage-related paraphrenalia. Because that bin now stores all the cameras, reels, tapes, and accessories I acquired, I will have to pick up a box for all the former contents. It has been long enough that I tackled the stuff surprisingly objectively. I recycled a bit (did I really still need to keep the list of shower gifts?), set a couple things into my Sally Ann box (someone will be thrilled to own a Build-a-Bear), and broke down other items so that I can reuse them (i.e. removed pictures so I can reuse the frames). The rest--love letters, engraved/personalized items, and pictures--will be returned to a box, and put into the corner of the top shelf in my closet.

I sifted through some photos over the weekend, and brought back some oldies that I will hopefully be able to scan this week and play around with in Photoshop. Snagged some CD's to import into my iTunes, too. It's so neat how I can take older technology and mesh it with the new to keep memories alive. I really hope I can find film somewhere for those old-old-old cameras, so that I can take 2008 photos in 1930's style. Artistically speaking, that would be so fun!