50+ Lifestyles

Enjoy those Memories Now!

By Harry G. Coin
Industrial/Systems Software Architect
CEO, Quiet Fountain LLC
563-332-4970 • hcoin@quietfountain.com

So, there I was. I pulled into the garage, hit the door-closer button, got out of the car, went across the floor, up the step, opened the back door, my mind wandering around what I’m supposed to do next, and – whump – into a scrum of people all looking at the old slides taken in the 1950s and later flipping past every 20 seconds on the computer’s big “screen saver.” Nobody can just walk past it without stopping. Not my aunt who’s seen them all 100 times, not the cleaning lady, not my kids and not their friends or ours. These old slides on display have given us a permanent case of “Hall Clog.” On the way in, on the way out, it’s like there is velcro on the floor and everybody just sticks there a while.

The old slides on display are really addicting. They start long conversations. They make people reach for yearbooks and scrapbooks.   Just on your way past and suddenly there you are, 10 years old with a frosty mug of root-beer, cake. Another time there you are at the wedding all those years ago, and really there is no doubt that the modern digital cameras make you look 20 lbs heavier than the old slide cameras. Seriously. And don’t even start with the comments about the beach vacation pictures. Good times.

The amazing thing about having those days on display, quietly but consistently is that they lighten the load. You get this warm feeling that tougher times can’t make the good days into nothing. Those times with the parents and friends nearly forgotten otherwise. They give you a chance to mention something about relations and friends long gone to the next generation – and just naturally in the moment, right in the flow of everyday life. Really if you can, don’t miss out moving your slides onto digital picture frames or computer or scrapbooks for yourself, your parents or your kids and their kids.

And for crying out loud, don’t wait another 20 years to sort them all, because if you were going to do that you’d have done it already, and nobody is getting younger! I faced the same problem with lots of photos, some of them amazing, but most of them just heartwarming moments.   My family had over 15,000, and immediate relations had another 10,000.  The price had to come down so I could just do them all. As I’ve had a career in computer systems architecture, I decided to make it happen. So during my evenings, I designed and built a custom system to convert thousands of slides onto DVDs in a quality better than they looked projected on the silver screen, especially improving the ones that were too dark.

Well, here we are. Now I have a hobby side-business that I’m ready to share with my fellow QCA area neighbors. If you have a only a handful of slides, it makes sense to go to a typical photo store near you, or buy one of those computer-attached wonders to convert them yourself. But if you have two or ten or three hundred bags, boxes or carousels, and you want them all done while you’re still young enough to pass copies around the family, I’d be pleased to offer you a chance to get the benefits that worked out for me! Call 332-4970 or visit www.slidekeeper.com.