Home movies are like fine wines. They improve with age.

My dad used to have- probably still does have- old home movies from when he was a boy. They were old black and white reels, and I used to get such a thrill out of watching them. I don't even remember what event the movies captured, all I remember is that it was summer, it was outside, and he was playing around in shorts and shirtsleeves. And it was my dad. As a boy!

That is the thing about home movies: some of the best movies capture the most mundane moments, and it is only years later that you can appreciate the beauty in the mundane. We didn't video tape our wedding, because I've had to sit through other wedding videos and I know what torture that can be; weddings might be fun the first time around but except for the key individuals (ie the bride and groom) they are not usually something you need to review over and over again. In hindsight, I do kind of regret it; many years from now my daughters might have enjoyed blowing the dust off the old DVD and seeing a nervous Greg waiting for his 45-minute-late bride; seeing the sun finally peek through the clouds as I arrived at the chapel, and seeing the startled expression on both our faces as we (finally) stood at the altar saying our vows and I unexpectedly started crying so that I could barely speak. Those were tears of joy! Joy! But, at the time, we were trying to save money and the video seemed unnecessary. We have plenty of photos.

However, I do remember my dad's childhood home movies, so when we had Juliette, I told Greg that we should get a video camera to record all her little (big) childhood moments. It took a while but, in typical Greg fashion, when he finally bought one he bought the best. A Sony HD 30GB Handycam.

Great. The problem is, that there are very limited options for editing the AVCHD format that this camera shoots it. I saved all the videos on the hard drive for a while, and when that got full I copied them onto our computer. There they sat for a while longer, because I didn't know what to do with them. I managed to work with a few of them, but often the program would crash or the file conversion would fail, and I would throw my hands up in despair. Then our computer crashed, and all of those videos were wiped out. I stopped using the video camera much, because it was just so frustrating.

Then Greg got a Flip as a gift at one of his business retreats. I didn't know what it was until I accompanied him on another business retreat many months later, and one of the other wives had hers with her and raved about it. When we got home we found the box, opened it up, and began using it. That video of Juliette at teeball was taken with the Flip. The nice thing is that it is small and easy to use. Just plug in into your computer and it uploads all the necessary software. On the other hand, compared with my Sony it is a piece of cr...

So I vowed to get out my video camera once again. I brought it with me last week to Juliette's kindergarten graduation, and later when we were looking at those videos (on the camcorder screen), I realized that I had videos of Juliette's preschool graduation as well. I had completely forgotten about that event.

I resolved that it was about time that I figured out how to use this damn piece of equipment. I found a software package from Sony (of course) that is capable of editing this particular file format, and I have begun to work with it. I feel like I need a video editing course, but although the progress is slow I am making progress. It has been four hours and am ten minutes in to the graduation ceremony!

So, although those videos are not ready to share, I thought I'd give you a preview: a frame from her graduation. Here Juliette has just found me in the crowd, and seeing that smile on her face makes me smile, too:
Yes, it is blurry: blame the camera operator.

And here, for comparison, is Juliette at her preschool graduation. All her classmates were happily singing, and Juliette was gripped firmly in the arms of the teacher, too scared to participate:



So stay tuned; more videos will be forthcoming. Soon. Eventually.