I Love Technology

I love technology. I like to think that I am pretty computer savvy. I think this all started with our VCR player. My mom claims that I could work that thing at a very young age. (While that may not sound like much now, remember that back then, VCRs were pretty technologically advanced)! But it also goes back to the days when my dad brought home our first computer. I don't know exactly how old I was, but I'm pretty sure it was still the 80's. I rembember my dad showing me how to type in the dos commands to get it up and running. I remember trying to teach myself how to type on the crude notepad application. I remeber the orange and black glow from the screen. I played "Pong" (or some version of it) on that computer. However, the best thing about that computer was the "Print Shop" application. I made more banners growing up than anyone else I know. I loved to play with the different fonts and graphics. Then I'd print it out on the continuous paper with our dot matrix printer. Not a birthday went by in my house without one such banner draped across the fireplace mantle.

As I got older (middle school, I think), I discovered PowerPoint. Not many kids my age were playing around with the presentation making software, but that didn't stop me. I thought of it as a sort of movie that I could make. I used the animations to make my graphics move, played with the transitions and made slideshows about my friends. I don't think people really knew how geeky I was.

The next big thing in technology our family got was a scanner. This provided endless hours of fun scanning in photos, opening them in "Paint" and painting on different hair colors, warts (not on photos of myself, of course), and anything else that seemed funny at the time. I still do this sometimes, but I've graduated from "Paint" to "Photoshop" and if I do say so myself, I'm pretty good at it now.

In college I got the bright idea to make digital movies. This was about 5 or 6 years ago, so it really wasn't as big as it is now. I like to think I was one of the first. By this time there was actual movie making software readily available and I didn't have to make my old PowerPoint "movies." Well, this hobby has stuck and I like to call it "extreme scrapbooking." I make home videos from our photos and digital videos. So here's a sample of my work. I hope you enjoy watching.