- going for a run at lady bird lake dowtown #austin beating the heat still in the 80s http://is.gd/1Di1a #
- Started Don Quijote. The Raffel translation again. It is both wonderful and the only version I own. Probably take me 4 months to read. #
- http://twitpic.com/axusv – 2hr toilet install done. Only took 2 weeks. #
- RT @pennjillette:I was asked to cngratulate a guy's son for mking Eagle scout. BSA doesn't allw Atheists or gays, so I said no.He was pissed in reply to pennjillette #
- RT: @nprnews: Drought Costing Texas $3.6 Billion — And Plenty of Snakebites http://bit.ly/A6SUO –And my new lawn. Mostly straw now. #
- Interesting Science Friday episode about benefits of white roof and light roadways. mp3: http://bit.ly/SciFriWhite #
- best thing at work. they moved the smoking section way way way out in the garage. added motorcyle parking. This must be a sign. #
- Scorpions On A Plane:Southwest Passenger Bitten, Panic Ensues http://bit.ly/rZ6Vw -victim's son pronounced incident to have been "awesome" #
- http://twitpic.com/bgt8f – just baked a loaf of hearth bread for dinner. it will go nicely with the soup. #
- http://twitpic.com/bgtnf – It looks like I cracked my stone. My fault. I splashed it with water while adding water for steam for the bread. #
- RT @petersagal: "Okay, tweeting from 30K feet, thanks to American Airlines… Thanks, world, for making sure I'll never read a book again." in reply to petersagal #
- http://twitpic.com/bha5h – if these jeans cost 100 at Costco what do they normally go for? #
- http://twitpic.com/bhcqx – If these jeans cost $100 at Costco what do they normally go for? #
- Our new vacuum cleaner works great. Apparently the old one was just for show. #
- My children are engaged in a sinister plot to drive me insane. #
- http://twitpic.com/bi2su – Eating the yougurt covered frozen bananas we made. Some with coconut, some with sprinkles, some with both. #
Tags: twitter
Well, I finally did it. I’ve been thinking about it since I first read about the service in 2006, but I finally did it. I gathered up all our film negatives, 35mm, 110, 127, 135, even a roll of APS and sent them all to ScanCafe.com. They will then scan our negatives, color correct, descratch, despeckle and remove red eye before placing them all online for us to view. We get to choose which we want (we have to pick and pay for at least 50%). Then they’ll send back our originals and our selected digital scans back to us on DVD(s). At that point it will be up to us to get them all tagged, descriptions added and uploaded to Flickr.
We’d purchased a slide scanner a few years ago, but after a couple of rolls of film it became clear that the time it would take to scan all our negatives, plus correct them all was more than I was willing to give. Frankly I was going to die before I got them all done. Luckily we got it at Costco so they took it back without a problem.
There are a couple of reasons we hadn’t sent our negatives before. The first is cost. Even though ScanCafe has great prices it is still pricey when you are scanning 3881 negatives. That is how many we sent over. It seems like a lot until you realize it is more or less everything Amber and I have shot until the end of 2005. Especially when compared to the 36,000+ photos we’ve taken on digital since then.
ScanCafe recently raised their prices. But before they did they had a sale bringing the price per 35mm negative to 19.2 cents. With prices rising to 29 cents per scan I wanted to get in on this sale. In all it saved us a couple of hundred dollars. They scan other formats too, they’ll even take your photos in the album for an extra $10, but we have so many negatives they were the focus.
The second major reason I’d been holding off sending our negatives is that I’m afraid of losing them. I was afraid they’d be lost in transit (the scanning takes place in India) or that they’d be lost at the facility or the company would go under or whatever nightmare scenario I could imagine. But now that the company has been around for several years and reviewing their process (see image below) I feel comfortable (though still not totally relaxed) that we’ll get our negatives back.
Once the negatives arrive in their facility they will be counted, weighed and processed under video surveillance. They do all this to ensure that not even a single negative is lost. Hopefully it works as promised.
Given our tendency toward organization (at least with photos) most of our negatives were in boxes labeled with the date and activity and accompanied by prints with descriptions on the back of each. I didn’t want to just throw all my negatives in a big pile in the box and send them off. How would we ever get them back together with their prints in the right box? Or know what the date is or what is going on in the photo? They’ve thought of that too. You can send your negatives or photos in marked bags. They’ll scan them in groups, naming them according to what you’ve marked and put them back in the bags when they are finished. We sent them 147 little marked baggies. All numbered and many with the photo date as well. It took me hours to count, label and pack these things. Hopefully it will be worth it when we get them back.
With any luck in a few months you’ll begin seeing some really old photos (maybe of you) in our Flickr stream. They expect us to have our photos back in September. My goal is all online by 2010.
If you’d like to send your photos, negatives or slides to ScanCafe I’d recommend first signing up for an account. It is free and they’ll send out periodic coupon codes that can save you some money. You can also let me know and I can send you a referral email. They’ll give us each a bit off our next scan. Not much, $10 or something, but it is better than nothing.
Tags: photos
- something you never thought you'd hear your almost 2yo daughter say: "It feels good on my vagina." in reference to cool air when naked #
- Just placed an order for scanning 3881 negatives at http://scancafe.com Approximate cost? $800 (if we keep all scans) w/ 20% off coupon #
- http://twitpic.com/a82cw – W 1st thing this morning:"I look like a macaroni cheese penguin" referring to his hair/macaroni penguin feathers #
- On the Palouse – Researchers looking for 3-foot, spitting worm under Northwest fields – Smells like a lily http://bit.ly/5tFGW #
- RT: @Frauenfelder: Priceline's ridiculous password hint question http://bit.ly/928Bl — hint? It is your password. #
- Perhaps the greatest warning sign of all time, via boinboing http://bit.ly/TuKpF – consider yourself warned #
- Only 6.5% of the email sent to us gets delivered. The rest is spam, viruses, and blacklist rejects. Spam is a huge waste of resources. #
- Texas has switched to a more efficient type of thermometer. It reads "God Damn It's Hot!" morning, noon and night. #
- Cold soup from the can. Not the lunch of champions. #
- RT: @BadAstronomer: HOLY FREAKING HALEAKALA! Apollo landing sites imaged by LRO!!! Incredible images! http://tr.im/sOCn #
- The best turtle masturbating video you'll watch from a twitter link today! Guaranteed! http://bit.ly/4aMTfj #
Tags: twitter
Wesley checked out a new DVD from the library last week: Smithsonian Networks Kids! Critter Quest. In one of the episodes of this nature show for kids, the host builds a small deadfall trap in his backyard to catch nocturnal insects. In the show they catch 3 beetles and then held beetle races. Wesley thought this was a great idea so we did it. He had a great time and was so excited to check the trap the next morning that he woke up early.
Supplies:
- Scissors or knife
- Small glass jar (we used a jam jar)
- Cardboard
- A shovel or something else to dig a hole
Step-By-Step:
To begin we dug a hole in the backyard just big enough to fit the jar. It needs to be buried completely level with the top lip of the jar. The idea is that the bugs will walk across the dirt and just fall right in.
Digging the hole.
Buried right to the rim.
With the cardboard we made 5 pieces. Four long strips about 3 inches by 18 inches and one top big enough to cover the jar. Each strip goes up against the edge of the jar at a 90 degree angle. Basically they form a big plus sign. Effectively they funnel the insects into the jar. The bugs are walking along, bump into the cardboard, and then follow the edge of the strip right into the jar.
Cardboard strips funnel in the insects.
Closeup of jar in ground.
Then you just place the last piece of cardboard on top to keep the jar from filling with water should it rain (thus drowning the insects).
Rain cover in place.
The next day we checked our trap. I was surprised to see about 60 pillbugs, a sowbug, a few earwigs, a small spider and an ant. The next day we found a similar number of bugs plus a small black beetle. We’ve set the trap again and we’ll let you know if we catch anything really exciting.
Our first day's catch.