05-DEC-A-5
BEGIN THE
SCRAMBLING FOR ASSEMBLY OF A MODIFIED YEAR-END LETTER FOR
THE “YEAR OF
THE
December 17,
2005
The letter is in the mail! It was not easy, of course, as it always takes out the most intensive period of time each year at the closure of the old year, finals, papers and exams, plans for travel and family visits, summary meetings—but, it happened again anyway! I had considered not putting in the round the clock effort this year to copy each of the scores of photo albums and text, and assemble the magnum opus, but then had several folk tell me they were looking forward to the full text through which they live vicariously each year end.
I decided to modify it considerably, however, and there are two versions: one is the unabridged complete pictorial review of the year in all its labor intensive cut-and-paste glories with which you have become familiar. This version is a good archival means of recounting the year in the many places and persons through which it has gone—a perhaps unique life recording. But, this is a tree-killing time and labor-intensive process and expensive, even in the mailing requirements. But, many people who have soai they like to live through the descriptive events recorded in the photojournalism have wanted this annual epistle, so I would do what could be done for this request. But, for others who might be interested in a briefer synopsis—an abridged version. This would be a score of pages rather than ten times that number. It might also be made electronically user-friendly, so that the text, at least, could be sent by email. What about the pictures? Xerography of B & W may give an outline like the “head-cuts” of portraits drawn for the Wall Street Journal, but the color pictures add more information. But that would be expensive if printed, and intensive if transmitted electronically amounting to many megabits. If I could make a collage of images (with a legend of captions) in a single page, the individual pictures could be high quality color shots and could be blown up with high resolution, and if trimmed down from the special programs in which they might be recorded (Adobe Photo Shop on CD and then Jpeg on CD of over a meg each) or translated into Word as a jpg of only 160 Kb, it could be easily transmitted without crashing anyone’s computer. If I printed the high resolution color collage, it would come out in very high quality on photo film or it could be printed through a color laser printer for the “Cover” of each letter. So, I could transmit the Text, Captions for the Color Collage and the pictorial single page of thirty three pictures by emails, particularly to addresses abroad.
For those who have asked for the unabridged version of 200 pages, like Kent who looks forward to the arrival of his year-end reading for “living large,” I could send the full unabridged version, but I have only printed up a score of such full texts and pictorials. I could also print the abridged version of twenty pages and send that to those who either have no email access or an addendum to give the color prints in addition to the emailed version. So, I am adding the “abridged form” as 05-DEC-A-7 to conclude the 05-DEC-A-series.
Each year the task value seems larger, but I keep looking forward to some form of desktop publishing to rescue me from the cut and paste labor intensive process, at the same time I am trying to escape from the twenty volume annual photo albums which have served me well as a means of recording each of the missions and the international experiences. But, the digital era is going to rescue me to the extent that I can start learning the “blogging” and desktopping, and the newer means of “digital scrapbooks, both complete and accessible. See what you think, and if this is the answer to the volume and variety of experiences and their recording, I will move toward the more portable means of digital archiving. Who knows now what the 2006 annual year-end letter will look like? Stay tuned to this spot!