What started out as preparation for Molly’s father’s, then her mother’s funeral, got totally out of hand. Looking back, given today’s technology, it seems like such a feudal attempt to describe a person’s life by presenting a few pictures in a frame.
Which got me to thinking; how much of a mess would I be leaving for my kids to have to clean up? It seemed like some unfinished business that one is supposed to plan for in later years.
So we decided to scan every picture that we had ever taken, and believe me there were hundreds. I lovingly transferred every VHS and Sony 8 cassette to digital. I scanned every legal document that could be lost or damaged. I know I got obsessed, but once I got started, It became an addiction. Then, there was the organizing. How does one fracture their life into recognizable snippets that can make any sense except to the person living it?
Somehow, eventually, we had to figure out where to store all this personal data. We went from gigabytes to terabytes in very short order. Then there were the tech issues, like huge losses of data from hard drive failures and “OMG”, I just hit the wrong button. All the reconstruction was so painful at the time.
Where does one store this kind of information? How is it best inventoried and filed? With the radical changes in technology, is there a best app, or IP address to provide the cross-referencing for photos, documents, videos, sources? It became a project with enormous Ganz chart potential.
From here it became a hobby of exciting, enjoyable future.