Anticipation

Once upon a time, memories were something we stored in our head. Until humans realized what an unreliable storage source the human brain could be, and sought more permanent solutions. Next thing you know we had books. But us silly humans never being satisfied, we couldn’t stop there. Before long we had such things a photographs and tapes and records and such.

Then along came the computer, and we took it a step further. All that solid stuff was nice, but it did not last very long and took up a lot of space. So enter the era of digital memories. Ironically we started with a brain and are ending up with the man made equivalent. But one problem with going digital is getting all those physical versions of memories into a digital format. Not to worry. We are crafty buggers. With the right equipment anything can be digitized! Before long we won’t even need solid versions any more!!

When I was in Junior High, We had a couple of big project fairs. One was a science fair, and the other was a creative fair. I went all geeky for the science fair, but that is a story for another day (maybe). For the creative fair, I decided to make myself a claymation movie. We were supposed to take weeks to do our projects, with multiple steps along the way. Me being me I did the whole thing in one day. Eight hours of laborious, step by step filming (which I was making up as I went along) later, I had a roughly three-minute movie that was pretty good.

At least that is what my unreliable human storage unit remembers.

So here it is some 20+ years later and in an uncharacteristic fit of cleaning I came across the movie. Getting all nostalgic, and still loving anything to do with animation, I decided I want to see this creation of my youth. Of course it is a super 8 movie, as in actual film requiring a projector and all. Now I know we have a projector in the dusty recesses, but I figured I would just go and convert it to digital so it would be available to all my future fans (assuming I ever get any). My buddy runs a videography studio, and offers this type of conversion. So I get the movie to him, and he gets the process going.

Part of the conversion requires that it get sent to another lab, which takes a few weeks. Now it is one of the ironies of life that despite the fact I have not missed this movie for 20 years, all of a sudden I can’t wait to see the thing. So I wait a couple of weeks and then do the polite adult version of "Are we there yet?!"

My buddy gets the idea that I want this thing. So the day it gets back from the lab, he has his guy quickly do the last bit of conversion to get it on a DVD so I can view it. Packages it up all nice and delivers it to my door. I didn’t expect this at all, so was jumping around like a kid on a hot summer day when the ice cream truck comes. At least in my mind!

My buddy had an appointment so left right after delivering. I ran upstairs, and pulled out the DVD. Turned on my Mac. Slid the DVD in the tray. Listened to the whir as the player began reading the DVD.  I was sooooooo excited!! And all of a sudden…

No DVD Found.

Ahhhhhhh. It can’t be! I have been waiting sooooooo long. What’s wrong?! So I of course try three or for more times … in denial. Text my buddy to make sure it would work on a Mac. Tried it on a PC. Seems in the rush to put it on DVD they never actually finalized the DVD.

Due to my transportation issues, I couldn’t easily get to his office, and of course never had the stuff needed when I ran across him. I was so antsy that I even planned to walk the five miles to his office to get it finished.

It is funny how we can wait forever for something (in some cases not even knowing we are waiting), and suddenly when it is almost in our grasp lose all patience. Calls to mind the Anticipation commercials for Heinz Ketchup!

Yep. I am dating myself here.