Before my first digital camera, I spent a lot of time putting photos into photo albums. Soon, I realized they took up a lot of space in the bookshelf.

Luckily, digital cameras became affordable in 2004, and I bought my first toy for years. For people in their 20s or younger, it's hard for them to imagine that I actually spent one week to study the manual (I did so for my first cell phone, maybe not as long as a week).

Clearly, digital is the way to go, but scanning hundreds of reprints seemed daunting. I bought a nice scanner in December 2007, thinking of asking a young lady to help me; it didn't work out. The scanner sat there, though not forgotten until this weekend. I downloaded the software from the internet, and dug out the power cord/USB cord from my "magic box (for e-parts)." Soon, I was in business.

The trick is to put a sticker next to the photo I wanted to scan since I didn't want to scan them all. Then, I could actually scan one photo at 600 dpi per minute. It's rather stressful, so I did 50 scans on the first day. Today, I put things closer to my Mac, and was able to do 70+ without getting too tired. It's actually fun to scan old photos, as if I traveled back in time...