You'd Never Remember...

My son turned three last week. It's so hard to believe he's that old. Thankfully, I have preserved all the precious memories with the help of modern technology. Below find running six month snapshots of his life thus far. I couldn't find the sonogram so a pic of my wife's pregnant belly will kick off the reel:

















My son actually has a dedicated website of his own. It's got over 3,000 pics of him and his sister, scores of video, and profound commentary as well (channeled through CaptiousDad). We don't use any of these stupid registration-required photo sites like Kodak EasyShare or Snapfish. In fact, if you send me a link to any of those sites I won't even bother to look at the pics.

Last year I started putting his videos on YouTube. So far they have been viewed, in total, about 11,000 times - mostly by total strangers and the two grandmothers.

Two days after my wedding, my wife and I were on a plane to Hawaii for our honeymoon. Of course all we could talk about was the wedding. We rehashed every little incident we could remember; after all, it's a long flight.

How much could we actually recall? Well, we thought we absorbed a lot until we got home after the honeymoon and started re-communicating with our guests. One or two sets of eyes and ears, no matter how perceptive, can never compete with dozens.

But then, a few months later, when we got the video footage of our ceremony and reception, we realized that hearsay and hindsight aren't even in the same league as recorded video. There was so much that happened, right in front of our eyes, that nobody could remember even a couple of days hence. These are all golden memories that now captured, can be enjoyed for decades, heck, for posterity. I made it my personal mission to convince everyone planning a wedding to get a videographer. Like all my sage advice, few heeded it.

Anyway, my point is, that both life and your memory are short so take some pictures and shoot some videos.

A little modern technology put to good use today will warm your aging bones tomorrow.



Lastly, how annoying is it to hear old coots brag about their athletic exploits from the 1950s? Soon future CaptiousKids will be able to snap at the Biff Loman's and Al Bundy's, "Show me the videos of you scoring touchdowns on YouTube or shut your pie hole!"

UPDATE - Thanks for the web traffic OdieLicksALot! My wife is starting to get embarrassed by all the attention from that pic. It's a good thing I cropped out her face!