upload the photo to photobucket, click on it once its in ur photo album, click on html code hit control v to add photo to main part of post. love to know what that pepper is and try to grow it sounds very cool

I know everybody is advocating transferring your tapes to DVD, BUT... As a computer geek/guru, I must tell you that the lifespan of "recorded" DVDs is unknown, but probably much shorter than everyone assumes. One highly regarded computer security specialist recently stated that they may be good for 2-3 years, possibly 5 years, but should never be used for "critical" data beyond that. Yes, I realize your tapes are probably not "critical data", but bear with me. I think someone would consider their wedding video to be critical data. Commercial movie DVDs are stamped out. It's a physical process, like embossing. "Recordable" DVDs use a dye, which changes its reflectivity when "burnt" by a laser. The longevity of this dye is questionable. The lifespan of a VHS tape is another story. If kept in a temperature-controlled, humidity-controlled environemnt (not a garage!), maybe 10-20 years before deterioration. The answer? There is no good answer. The original Declaration of Independence is fully legible after 230 years. A copy of it on a DVD or VHS tape 230 years from now: probably unviewable. Another question: will anyone have a VHS tape deck or a DVD player 10 or 20 years from now? Will analog TV signals be playable, since switching to digital TV is mandatory in just a few years? How many of you have a 5 1/4 floppy disk drive? See the problem? This is an enormous problem which librarians are facing now. Microfilm machines? Microfiche? How about a disk from a WANG word processor from 20 years ago? An 8" floppy disk? I know I've gotten a little carried away, but all electronic media need to be copied to a new format every 5-10 years, because the formats fall out of usage. Got any out-of-print 8-track tapes? If it hasn't been reissued, then once that tape dies, IT'S GONE...FOREVER. I'm sure glad that the Declaration of Independence wasn't written on a word processor!

this is my most recent project, so I feel the need to respond. For the most part I keep my pics in albums: I have one set for me & DH, then I keep one per year for each kid (only two kids!). However, with both of us working (until very recently!) I have gotten sort of backlogged. Finally this weekend I decided to bite the bullet and dive into organizing the cumulation of mountains of pics. I now have three photo storage boxes: one for our albums, one for son and one for daughter. Within each box, I have tabs (to et me caught up, I have Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter for the last two years, plus a Vacation one, an Old PIcs one, and an Extras one. Seems to me that you always end up with photos that really don't rate for albums, but you don't want to throw out. This way I can easily pull for albums, then keep whatever others for later use (graduation stuff, wedding showers, etc) With the tabs it makes "filing" quick and easy. I also have a box with tabs for "To Be Mailed" and "To Be Framed". Whe you mail out notes, makes it much easier to know if you have enough copies of a pic for mailing. These boxes don't take up much space, and for me make organizing pics pretty straightforward. So I still have albums and extra pics, but I just can't bear to part with ALL my photos that don't make the album "cut", KWIM?

Maybee, your book is lovely, is your book 2 or 3 explosions attached? Since I'm clueless to scrapbooking, I'd really like to see a finished one, showing how it looks with photos attached/inserted, if you have a picture for that to share. If not, that's OK, too. What a great gift that would be for a host or hostess after they've had you over for a party or vacation. It's a great idea and I may just have to try to make one. I'd appreciate the link to instructions to make a book like yours.