So, here I am, alone with the cats for the next four days. Deb and AJ took off for the Aptos Hills near Santa Cruz to visit “Aunty” Jayne, Debbie’s best friend since the second, or is it the third grade?
In any case, they’ve been friends for decades, and Jayne has been a surrogate mother/aunt to Amanda since birth.
They’ve been making similar trips since AJ was born. I rarely accompany them, it has always been their “girls trip”. Other than an interest in aviation I have almost nothing in common with Jayne’s husband. He’s a major collector with a huge custom built library about the same size as our whole house next to their home.
He has some very interesting collectibles, but his interest tends towards early aviation history while I’m more interested in current and future developments in aviation and space travel.
Also, their ISP sucks. They’re kind of out in the country so they have a slow DSL connection with a very small data cap. Several years ago. the one time I visited them in this house I didn’t realize that and accidentally used about 95% of their data for the month by streaming a TV show on my iPad.
Their house is on a hill overlooking a major highway and I offered to help them set up a 5G cellular hotspot, but they’re happy with what they have. I think they mostly watch DVDs and Blue Rays, and maybe the get terrestrial TV over the air.
Deb left detailed instructions on the care and feeding of Archie and Finn, our feline overlords. The tasks are not at all onerous. I think we’ll get along fine.
I’ll be keeping myself busy running through something like thirty reels of old 8mm and Super8 home movies inherited from Dad and his Dad. I just opened a case full of Grandfather Fisher’s old films and was blasted by the smell of vinegar.
Turns out that old acetate movie film used well into the 50s is subject to “vinegar syndrome”, which causes the film to curl at the edges and outgasses acetic acid.
So the 15 or so reels in Grandpa’s film case will be the first ones I digitize. I checked the first reel and it looks like the first ten to 20 feet are unsalvageable. I’ll do what I can.
So I’m happy, I have a PROJECT!
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