Scrapbooking: Collecting the Stories

The Situation: My family has a tradition of going on one really big, really cool vacation every summer (at least a week, usually two, to either some amazingly awesome place or occasionally several slightly-less-cool places, almost always involving much camping). This has been going on for somewhere in the vicinity of ten years - mostly since we stopped going to White Chalk Bluffs in Uvalde, but Deer camp rocked too. What with having all these planned adventures, and our numerous unplanned adventures - both while on vacation, and during regularly scheduled life - we've got quite a few stories to tell. But somehow we've never really had one place to put all these stories. Solution? Scrapbook with pictures, mementos, et cetera on one page and the relevant stories on the back (or facing page - haven't decided which, yet).

The Goal: Comprehensive scrapbook including all of our major vacations and any particularly memorable holidays, plus a few other random events that I think deserve a page (particularly good camping trips, prom, things like that).

Thoughts on the Matter: I've already pulled together about 350 photos from my computer. That covers the past ten years in fair detail, but there are a few vacations that I think I need some more photos for - when I get to them, I'll pull the rest from my external hard drive. Also, I've been collecting the little things from various vacations over the past year and putting them all in a box. Brochures, maps, ID tags, so on and so forth. And of course scrapbooking paper - mostly neutrals, since most of our stuff is outdoors and I generally want the focus to be on the pictures, not the backgrounds, but I've also got one of those pound-of-scrap things and miscellaneous ribbons, stickers, etc. Now all I need to find is a thing of plain white cardstock to print on - I think paper will be too flimsy, the glue makes the ink run - and away we'll go!

Well, not quite. There's one more thing I need, and that's the stories and one-liners we invariably come up with. Things like "Danger: Hot Brakes Fail!" and "No soap or water, eight days!" Thus, my current project: Scouring my blogs for the post-vacation outlines. Really makes me wish I'd kept a diary. I'll get what I can from this, and then I guess I'll start asking around for the stories I've forgotten or wasn't around for. Should be interesting, at least.

The Links:

• Nova Scotia trip (2006)
• Easter in West Virginia (2006)
• RenFaire 2005
• Muddy Easter (2004)
  

Vaguely Related: These deserve a place in the "friends' stuff" scrapbook.

Dear Ha'Ri,

It has come to my attention that you have procured a Spanish language CD set of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. I congratulate you on your acquisition. I hereby request that this CD set (and all future CD sets of this type in any and all languages) be copied and sent to me. Si éstas órdenes se ignoran un desastre inimaginable ocurrirá.

Your Obedient Servant,
K.M.

Dear Maki,

In response to your letter, I am obliged to express my deepest regrets for being unable to supply with a copy of the CD in question at this time, as you and possibly myself will not be present at the Den this coming weekend. However, I would be more than happy to deliver the CD at a later date.

I also feel it my duty to inform you that the CD is merely a one-disc affair, the two-disc set being unavailable through Barnes and Nobles and considerably more expensive as well. In addition, it is not the recording to which we listened some weeks ago; rather, it is more similar to the English and Japanese versions already in your esteemed possession, in that it does indeed contain fully-orchestrated music.

Si tengas mas preguntas yo iré en Australia.

Your obedient servant,
L.E.

Potential for the back of a Bilge Pumps spread?

We went to Mardi Gras on the Strand, it sucked. As usual. But we -did- find this one cool group called the Bilge Pumps. They dress like pirates, sing vulgar chanties, and have waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much fun on stage. The Charlie Mopps lyrics on the previous post are the regular lyrics, except the stuff in italics, which is what these guys throw in...it's cool.

And duuuuuuuuuuuuuude! This one guy, E the Bosun, plays a fricking didgeridoo!!



All right, well, that's the posts from Xanga. I'll start digging through LiveJournal (it's older, and will take longer) - for now I want a quick nap, and then off to Walmart for cardstock and some other schtuff.