How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation 2.0, OR: A Series of Totally Awesome Ideas by Lacey

Also known as: Probably the Longest Title in the History of Blog Titles Ever. (two subtitles!! Take that . . . ummmmmm . . . subtitle-ers!!!)

Anyway.

So I'm looking forward to (in a literal, not eager sense) at least three months of more or less nothing to do. And I've been anticipating this for a couple of months already and remembering last summer and how bored I got some days and what the crap am I going to do and I really need to find some sort of big project or something to do and preferably one that involves being somewhere with air conditioning in the afternoons as opposed to being outside. And at some point whilst I'm trying to come up with a totally fantabulous project I was killing time clicking around on facebook - because really, does anybody do anything else these days? - and I was looking at someone's pictures (don't remember whose, but they were family) and I saw a picture . . . either of me, or of an event I was at, don't quite remember which . . . and I distinctly remember thinking "What the crap?! I've never seen that picture before!" Or something like that. Anyway, it got me thinking. There are lots of pictures out there. More specifically, there are clearly a lot of family pictures out there. Even more specifically there are a lot of family pictures out there that are not in the possession of the person/family in them. So not everyone gets to see them/know they exist. Now back in the day (i.e., fifteen+ years ago) this made sense because to make tons of copies of a picture would get super expensive. But these days you just scan them into the 'puter and put them online then whoever wants them can print their own copy . . . genius idea #1!

Now, I do not have a lot of pictures anyone other than Luke and I would be interested in. On the other hand, my parents have plenty of pictures I could see the four of us fighting over once they croak. But if their are digital copies, we can each make as many as we want. Score! So I start asking my mother to borrow her huge stack of pictures sitting in this corner of her closet, but every time I bring it up she has some excuse. I'm beginning to think there is some pretty incriminating evidence of . . . something in there, so if anybody has the juicy details fill me in! :-P Anyway, expanding the view back even more I start thinking, hey, I've got two sets of grandparents who have a massive butt-load of pictures and even more people who probably would like copies. And I certainly have more free time and (at least theoretically, although perhaps not in actuality) more techno-savvy, so why don't I do it? Genius idea #2!

So Dad's parents came down in . . . the end of March-ish? . . . for a funeral and bring with them four massive binders of pictures, and I'm thinking I'll just start a flickr account for each side of the family and give everybody the password and then everybody who wants copies or wants to add pictures can. Then I look into actually doing that and it turns out that the free flickr accounts are REALLY limited when it comes to how many pictures you can add - to the point of uber-impracticality for this project. So there goes that idea. Epic fail #1.

But then I find out that facebook has this thing called family groups (tangent: what happened to groups on facebook, anyway? All these stupid "fan" pages that should really be groups . . . LAME!) that's well . . . for families - go figure. It's totally private and stuff, and it seems like the perfect way to share all the pictures because everybody can add any they want. Genius idea #3!

That idea work perfectly for mom's side of the family since my dad is literally the only member over the age of 13 not on facebook. Not so much for dad's side since only the seven older cousins and my grandparents are there . . . still trying to figure out what to do there. But I'll probably be starting the Hulsey group tonight or tomorrow (unless of course I get an overwhelming number of comments opposing that idea . . . then again Grandma thinks it's an awesome idea so maybe I'll just pull her rank on all y'all and do it anyway, lol) so don't be confused when you see the invite. I'm thinking one group for Grandma & Grandpa's family and since I know a lot of Swapp cousins - most of whom I've never met - are on facebook too somebody ought to start a "one generation back" group too. That way it's organized . . . well, kinda like families are anyway. Cool, eh? Genius idea #4! (and whoever wants to start that one, go for it.)

Bad news wrapped in good news: Grandma Hulsey think my scanning the pictures idea is awesome. (both grandmas do, actually) So awesome, in fact, that she and Grandpa have already started scanning theirs in. So there goes that big old pile of pictures I was hoping could occupy me for a summer or two. Semi-epic fail #2.

Soooooooooooooo . . . yeah. I am hereby volunteering to scan any pictures anyone may wish to contribute to the facebook group/Lacey's summer project. And I'm totally looking forward to seeing what pops up once things get going. This is going to be fun! :-)

P ost S. cript
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!