What have I been doing?

Okay, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve returned to the great land I can call my… my… the place where I grew up and… I guess my home. What the heck has been Paul doing?

Well, the first few days were spent looking for a place to live which doesn’t come by very easily, and also enjoying the wonders of unpacking the gear I have been traveling with, along with boxes I mailed home to myself after 3 years of living in Japan. Trying to find room for them. And to find room for them also means spending plenty of time going through over 30years of family stuff (parents and myself included), getting rid of stuff which haven’t been touched since the 70s, 80s and 90s. And here lies much of the problem. These days, you can’t simply toss out bags and bags of random stuff anymore. Where my parents live, you’re limited to 1 bag of rubbish a week. And when you’ve got over 30 years of memories, junk and unused and unfasionable furniture…

And, when I’m not at my parents, I’ve been busy organizing, editing, labeling, (given up on photo tagging, as that’s too much work) and burning approximately 4 years worth of digital photos, which are scattered amongst a number of external HDDs, memory cards and discs. (3 years in Japan, and plenty of traveling inbetween and after) All in all, this takes quite a bit of time. Also making 2 backup DVDs of each set, assigning one external HDD to store them all for immediate access. And on top of that, scavenging my parents basement for older digital photos to store on my designated external HDD. And with whatever 35mm, medium-large format negatives and printed photos I wish to use,.. I’ll slowly incorporate them into my collection. I’m not crazy enough to scan them all now. I’ll be doing this on a use by use basis.

And there goes hours, days of my time. On top of trying to have a so-called normal life. Whatever that may be.