Write From Karen

They call it the “dilemma zone.” That point in time when you’re driving down the street and the light turns to yellow. You have exactly 1/2 second to decide if you’re going to run the light, or slam on your brakes. Do you have time? What does your internal clock tell you? Because we all know that yellow lights stay on for five seconds.

Give or take a click or two.

What would you do if you didn’t know how long the yellow light would stay on? I’m betting you would stop – better safe than sorry, right?

MoDOT (Missouri Department of Transportation) is changing traffic signal times in response to a new Federal study that found we need more time to stop. It’s not because of what we drive, because newer cars are getting better at stopping.

MoDOT’s Tom Blair said, “Cars do stop, just as well or better than they have in the past. [Chris Hayes interjected] This is our problem. [Blair added] This is our problem. Our motorists, myself included, we need more time to stop. We have too many things that distract us from doing our due diligence which is being an alert driver.”

So MoDOT is adapting to how we react when approaching an intersection. Engineers call it the dilemma zone. We all get that feeling when the light turns yellow, ‘can I make it?’ A lot of it depends on how fast you’re going. So MoDOT is changing yellow lights to make it comfortable for you to stop and they’re basing it on the average speeds people are going.”

Source

MoDOT implemented the longer yellow light experiment at an intersection in Arnold, Missouri to see if fewer people would be caught running a red light.

Last May, Arnold cited 709 people for running a red light on camera.
May 2011? Arnold cited 17 people.

So, will MoDOT implement longer yellow lights throughout Missouri?

MoDOT’s Tom Blair cautioned, “I think the jury’s still out, Chris, on the reduction of red light violations that we’ve seen in 141 in the city of Arnold. We have to see 2-3 months, 6 months, a year from now, does that continue to produce that? Or do all the motorists just re-adapt and now they start running the new red light time?

And that’s precisely what I think will happen. I think the lower number of people caught running red lights in the example above is because the longer duration allowed more people to cross the intersection before it turned red. I also think it temporarily confused people and they slowed down out of caution.

I also firmly think that people WILL adapt and we will soon be back to the exact same situation we’re in now – people will take chances because people inherently think they can get away with it. So overall? I don’t think lengthening the amount of time the yellow light is on will make a huge difference one way or another.

But the part that really gets my blood boiling about this entire piece? MoDOT wants to lengthen the yellow lights because “we have too many things that distract us from doing our due diligence which is being an alert driver.”

Because we’re distracted with something other than driving, we need more time to stop.

What. The. Hell.

So, in answer to the fact that too many people are distracted when they drive is to give people MORE time to finish what they’re doing and bring their attention back to driving.

Because driving is a SECONDARY priority, you see.

Are you kidding me??

Here’s an idea – CUT OUT THE DISTRACTIONS AND FOCUS ON DRIVING, MORONS. WHY must we allow for these dangerous distractions? Why must we excuse people’s responsibility to drive safely? Why don’t we focus on educating and warning people about keeping their eyes on the road instead of pandering to the idiots who would prefer to use their cars as mobile offices?

It drives me bonkers whenever we give people an excuse not to take responsibility for their actions and choices.

Making the yellow light sequence longer is not going to force people to become better drivers. They will just adapt to the longer time period and continue to be piss-poor drivers. Because bottom line? People nowadays don’t think about how their bad habits will affect other people. Because the world nowadays is all about ME, ME, ME.

People need to start caring, and respecting, other people. We need to start training people, because the message got lost somewhere over the years, to be courteous and polite to each other, both on and off the road. Pandering to people’s bad choices will never solve the problem.

Any problem.

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General

Children in Joplin Missouri Really Need Our Help

June 24, 2011June 24, 2011 Karen

Just saw this on Facebook and thought I would pass it on along here, too.

Just because the disaster is over in Joplin, doesn’t mean they are back to normal. The cleanup is just beginning and will continue for months. In the meantime, they still need our help.

Please consider Adopting an Eagle (Joplin’s mascot is the Eagle), or a Joplin classroom and help these poor children prepare to go back to school this Fall.

From the Joplin Schools’ website:

At 5:41 p.m. on Sunday, May 22, Joplin, Missouri was struck by a horrific EF-5 tornado. The Joplin area schools suffered casualities and major facility damage.

Joplin Schools began responding immediately. Our first priority was to account for all of our staff and students, then assess the damage. All students and staff were accounted for within one week of the tornado, but the numbers were grim.

Seven of our students and one Joplin Schools’ staff member were killed. Our thoughts and prayers go out to these families.

Joplin Schools pledges to do everything within our power to help our community rise up from this catastrophe. The damage to our schools was significant.

Just look how many schools were either completely destroyed or suffered structural damage:

Total Losses:
Franklin Technology Center, Irving Elementary School and Joplin High School

Still Pending Further Investigation by Insurance Company:
Old South Middle School, Emerson Elementary School and Joplin East Middle School

Suffered Significant Damage:
Cecil Floyd Elementary School and Roi S. Wood Administration Building

Suffered Minor Damage:
Kelsey Norman Elementary School and Duquesne Elementary School

Thank God this tornado didn’t happen during school hours. Can you imagine how many children would have been injured and/or killed? It’s a truly horrifying thought.

Joplin Schools is rebuilding and reassuring our families that school will begin on August 17. Actual reconstruction began May 26. Students and parents will continue to receive the high quality education they deserve and expect.

There are challenges ahead, but a new day has begun at Joplin Schools. People make the difference and we invite you to join us.

The schools weren’t the only thing destroyed in Joplin – approximately 30% of the city was destroyed, too. If you would like to help with the cleanup efforts and/or help Joplin rebuild, the Rebuild Joplin website is a good place to start.

We are personally going to try and help at least two students with back-to-school supplies and possibly some supplies for a few teachers, as well. Won’t you join me in helping our children go back to school this Fall?

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Book Corner

Spring Reading Challenge ’11 Wrap Up

June 23, 2011June 24, 2011 Karen

It’s time to wrap up Katrina’s 2011 Spring Reading Challenge over at Callapidder Days.

(You can read my original post here).

This is about my second (or third?) time participating in the reading challenges but my first time to actually meet my reading goals. I don’t know, I was HUNGRY to read this go-around. I’m really going to try and spend my time reading as opposed to surfing the Internet – it’s a much more productive use of my time (though I won’t necessarily say more interesting because you guys? Are a pretty interesting bunch of people). I ended up reading a total of 13 books.

Here is the list of books and a short blurb about my thoughts on the books. The ** signifies that the book was added onto my original list.

One True Thing by Anna Quindlen
Have you seen the movie? It has Meryl Streep and Renee Zellweger in it. I can honestly say this is one movie I’m not interested in seeing. The book was depressing enough. And somehow, though these actresses are great, I wonder just how true to character they would portray them. Quindlen’s work is heavy on the emotions and thick with pretty descriptions but I enjoy her work, overall. I just have to have a lot of patience to read her work.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
What can I say? I enjoy The Hunger Games Trilogy. And I’ll be the first to admit, I’m looking forward to the movies simply because it’ll be interesting to see how they bring it to the screen (these stories have a lot of bloody action). I think the premise behind these stories is pure genius. Collins does a spectacular job of producing moral dilemmas and displaying raw emotions. I really enjoyed how she tortured her characters (quite literally, actually) and was then rewarded with their reactions.

1st to Die by James Patterson
This is my first exposure to the Women’s Murder Club and I’m hooked. I bought the 2nd through the 4th books at the library sale this past spring and I’m looking forward to reading them. I think the mix of different female roles in this story really added an interesting element to the story and really gave the mystery a human face.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
I’m also looking forward to watching the movie adaptation of this story, too. I watched the first movie and they did a really good job sticking to the story – which is really saying a lot considering Larsson is a very thorough writer. His stories take a bit of patience, they generally start out slow, but they soon pick up and of course, Lisbeth is a force to be reckoned with – I’d hate to get on her bad side. I already have the third book in this trilogy and I’m looking forward to seeing how Lisbeth’s story plays out.

Daddy’s Girl by Lisa Scottoline
I really enjoy reading writers who were a professional first before becoming writers (like lawyers, doctors, etc). I think Scottoline’s law experience really adds another dimension to her stories. It also gives her stories authenticity. I also appreciate how concise her writing is as well – you can tell the woman knows her way around the English language. I’m on a mission to read all of her work.

Die for Me by Karen Rose
This story was recommended to me by one of the Write Anything writers. I REALLY enjoyed how the story was told through four different POV’s. This sounds confusing, but Rose does a good job keeping everything straight and the multiple POV’s really added depth to the story. I’d really like to incorporate this style in my own writing as I find writing multiple POV’s challenging and quite fun. Now if I can only handle it half as well as Rose did.

Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
I have to be honest, I don’t particularly care for Sparks’ writing. I think his writing is a bit stale and geared more toward telling as opposed to showing. However, his stories are quite compelling and very emotional and Sparks does a good job tapping into our basic need for solid and meaningful relationships. I have to sort of mentally pump myself up whenever I read his work because his writing really does bug me and it’s sort of emotionally draining. But, I’m learning from his ability to tell an interesting story because obviously people like him and I can learn from that attraction. I’m going to try and read all of his work, too.

** Chocolat by Joanne Harris
I saw the movie with Johnny Depp (*DROOL*) and was naturally curious to read the book. This is one of those few times that I actually liked the movie more than the book. The screenwriter inserted a love story between Vianne and Roux and though it was only a secondary story line, I thought it really gave the story an interesting twist (and I’m a sucker for romance, obviously). The real story, of course, was the spiritual battle between one’s duty to God and one’s natural inclination to be tempted with worldly pleasures (in this case, the sweet temptation of chocolate and other sweets). I ADORED the movie and really enjoyed Harris’ interesting and somewhat tormented characters.

** Meet Me in Venice by Elizabeth Adler
I enjoyed how Adler weaved two different stories into one. I also thought it was fun how the two main characters never actually met before one of them was killed. Adler does a really good job at keeping the reader interested in both the story and in compelling characters. The ending was a bit contrived and ho hum, but overall, it was a story worth reading.

** The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
I have to say, I don’t care for the title of this story, at all. It sounds like a boring documentary about the life of bees, but I’m glad I ignored my initial aversion to the title and read the story. It’s a period piece that takes place back in the Civil rights days, so the language is a bit off putting, but appropriate given the time period. This story is character driven, not plot driven, but somehow, that doesn’t slow it down. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Lily, for all children in her situation, actually, but it was satisfying to see her character grow and mature and for her story to resolve itself. The characters surrounding Lily were also really interesting and they made this story, in my opinion. I watched the movie, mainly because I really like Queen Latifah and Dakota Fanning, but the screenplay was pretty true to the book and worth watching.

** The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner
This was a series of short stories so don’t expect to shut the book with any sort of satisfaction because a lot of the stories leave you hanging and not really a desire to read more. It was like Weiner compiled some of her warm-up stories and put them into a book – they weren’t bad, but not really good, either. I’m not a big fan of short stories (which is ironic considering I like writing short stories) and though I wouldn’t read this book again, it was worth a quick look.

** Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
Ah, the story of Belle and Edward. I’m not a big vampire fan. But as with so many other people, I’ve gotten sucked (pardon the pun) into the Belle and Edward story. I’ve posted my thoughts on the Twilight series here and here, so I won’t rehash that on this post. I thought it was interesting that we spend so much more time following Jacob’s story in this book. I guess Meyers wanted to show her readers Belle’s love struggle – though I never really get a sense that Belle loves Jacob anymore than a good friend, her clear obsession with Edward is almost sick in it’s intensity, but still, I suppose she had to throw a wrench in there at some point because it truly is exhausting to watch two characters nearly destroy themselves over their love for each other. I have the movie in my Netflix queue and will be watching it shortly. Fun fact: Kevin is pretty hooked on the Twilight stories, too. Which REALLY surprises me, actually.

** The Sinner by Tess Gerritsen
Gerritsen is an ex (?) doctor who writes medical thrillers. As with Scottoline, I really enjoy her stories because you can just tell the woman knows what she’s talking about, which lends an air of credibility to her stories. To spice things up, Gerritsen writes her stories centered around two strong women, one a cop and the other a medical examiner, which gives the reader two different perspectives on the same situation. At the same time, these two women have their own personal problems and though I can appreciate Gerritsen writing in some of their drama, I do find myself getting a little impatient with the detours and wish she would stick a little more to the case at hand. But her writing is interesting and pretty fast-paced so it keeps my attention. I personally admire Gerritsen and Scottoline and would like to fashion my own writing after them.

Thanks for sticking this post out. Reviews aren’t always the most interesting, unless you’re a book worm, like myself. A lot of these books are available to buy (for cheap!!) in my Amazon book store, just click on the links and it will take you there.

I hope you find some time to read this summer and I’ll see you at the Fall Reading Challenge!

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More from Write From Karen

Abundant Life

Audio Teaching: Jesus Christ Our Approach Offering

June 22, 2011April 27, 2011 Karen

by John Schoenheit
Even a casual reading of the Old Testament indicates that God did not seem very accessible to the believers living then. This became very clear once the Tabernacle was built in the weeks after the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. Although it gave people a place to worship God, it also clearly kept them apart from Him. High curtains separated the people even from the courtyard where offerings were burned to God. Only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, where God dwelled between the cherubim, and even he got to go in only one day a year.

He took so much incense that even if the place was well lighted (which it certainly was not) he could not see anything anyway. When the Israelites did come to God, they were to bring an offering, which the Hebrew text of Leviticus calls “an approach offering.” One of the great works of Jesus Christ was to remove all the distance between God and the people and give each believer welcome access into the very presence of God. This teaching goes into some detail on the setup and operation of the Tabernacle, explains the offerings in Leviticus, and then expounds important verses in the book of Hebrews that pertain to the work of Christ.

Click the arrow to listen.

Transcription | Related Topics

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Life

Update on Jazz’s Toes

June 21, 2011June 21, 2011 Karen

When I picked Jazz up from summer school today (remember, he has personal finance in the morning and P.E. in the afternoon – NOT the best class to have when you feel like your toes are going to fall off), and he said today was the first day that he didn’t feel the agonizing pressure on his toes that has crippled him these past several days.

Praise God! I’ve been praying really hard for God to heal him – it’s been a ROUGH week for Jazz.

He was actually walking normally to the car today. I can’t help but wonder if the Epsom salt soak helped with the pressure. We haven’t been doing the soaks because the salt has just about killed Jazz this past week, which is probably good, salt is healing, but I just couldn’t bear to see him in so much ADDITIONAL pain, so I didn’t push the issue.

Anyway, we went to the followup visit with the podiatrist this afternoon. His toes look gross, but the doctor said he’s seen much worse at this stage. He was concerned about all of the pain that Jazz has been feeling. Though his toes would still feel sensitive at this stage, he said they shouldn’t be hurting him as much as they have been and that that was a sign they were infected.

He prescribed a different antibiotic and we’ve made another followup appointment in two weeks – WHICH, hopefully, will be the last time we have to see him because HOPEFULLY, the infection will be cleared up by then and he should be feeling much better by then.

I hope.

The doctor did use some tweezers to pluck out some dead skin (string of built-up puss? I didn’t catch what that was, exactly), and Jazz nearly came unglued when he touched the tweezers to his toe. Again, the doctor said he shouldn’t have been so sensitive and that it was the infection that was causing so much pain.

I blame myself. I take total responsibility for Jazz’s pain. Why? Because I should have stuck with the initial antibiotics that the clinic prescribed. I also should have stuck with the soaks. If I had done those two things, Jazz probably wouldn’t have been in so much pain this past week.

I dropped the mom ball. I not only dropped it, it rolled under the couch and got stuck under there.

*SIGH*

The antibiotics knocked him out. They made him so drowsy that he couldn’t keep his eyes open at school, which was terrible timing because it was finals week and he sort of needed to stay awake for those. That’s why we didn’t finish the medicine. But still, I should have worked around his school schedule and given them to him, regardless. It’s my fault that this has gone on for so long.

I feel so bad for the kid. It’s bad enough to see your kid in pain, it’s worse when you realize that you actually contributed to that pain.

At any rate, we finally figured out that ibuprofen works better for him than Tylenol, so I guess that’s a plus.

A small plus.

So here we are. Taking an oral antibiotic and when the infection gets knocked out, then we’ll have to treat his toes to an anti-fungal ointment for … God only knows how long.

Jazz was actually in pretty good spirits today. I think he was just so relieved to have a break from the pressure that he was giddy. I told him on the way home today that he now had a “story” to share with people. “Remember when I was 16-years old and had to have my toenails removed? Yeah. That sucked.”

I also told him that this kind of thing, only makes a person stronger. It builds character. I know he doesn’t want to hear that from me right now, but at some point, he’ll get what I’m saying.

We ALL have stories, unfortunately.

Home Movies, VideoPlay

Four Minutes of Cutesy Love Stuff

June 21, 2011 Karen

WARNING – WARNING!

Home video ahead!

Proceed at your own risk.

BYOP (Bring your own pillow)

I’ll supply the drool bibs.

Okay. I’m getting this digitizing process down and it’s going a lot faster than I anticipated. So far, so good. *knock on wood* I’m currently on tape four and I’m BORED OUT OF MY MIND. Seriously. I could never make it as a videographer because I literally have HOURS of film of people eating.

What the …??

I didn’t eat back then to stay skinny, so I think I was wishful thinking – fantasy calories are just as good as the real thing? Right?

Now? *pfft* Pass the buffet, friend.

Anyway … there may not be as many snippets as I had hoped because truly, I can barely stomach watching all of this footage; I would never dream of putting you all through that torment. I mean, I like to consider myself a brutal-sort of blogger, but even I have limits.

This first video is our first anniversary. We gifted ourselves our first video camera and we took a video of us taking a bite of the first tier of our wedding cake saved from our wedding. You can watch the results.

Pardon the mushy kissing part but we were young and in love. (Sorry Kevin, not WERE, but ARE – ARE darling). Actually, we still do that, but now it’s even more gross because we’re old and wrinkled. We only do it in public to embarrass our teenage sons. SCORE.

Also? This was the one and only bite I had of my wedding cake. (Er. Wait a minute, maybe not). I was too nervous and worked up to eat any cake on our wedding day so … I’m really hoping it tasted better on THE day because it was like chewing cardboard that had been soaked in dog urine when we took this video.

Yum.

Here’s a picture of us with our entire wedding cake, if you’re interested. We’re munching on that top tier you see.

Did you notice anything weird about the Happy Anniversary sign that Kevin printed out on our state-of-the-art ZENITH computer and Epson dot-matrix printer? (You did indeed read that correctly. We’re old enough to have been around when computers were first becoming available to private citizens. And you only THOUGHT I was old, right?) For you sharp-eyed readers out there, a gold star if you noticed that “Anniversary” is missing an “R”. It say, “Happy AnniverSAY.” Hence the reason we say “Happy AnniverSAY” to each other every anniversary. Inside joke. Well, not so inside now, now that I’ve shared the joke with you all.

I will be honest and tell you that Kevin is quite horrified that I’m posting this for all the Internet to see. But as usual, I sweet talked him into letting me have my way so … don’t ruin it for me by making fun of it or anything or my marriage may not SEE year number 22. HA!

Some observations while watching these old movies:

I had BIG hair. No now, we can be honest. There is some footage where it’s literally standing on end. Why didn’t anyone tell me how stupid I looked?!? I mean, good grief. In fact, the next video I’m posting is me, in my hot rollers just to PROVE to you that I suffered all in the name of having awesome early 90’s hair.

Also? What is up with my high, squeaky, hillbilly voice? I had no idea I sounded like that and when I turned to Kevin, just now, my face a mask of petrified horror, and asked him if I still sounded like that, he said, “No. Thank God.”

Okay so I added the “thank God” part, but wow people. All that is missing are my overalls and missing teeth. (And I stopped wearing overalls shortly after having babies because WOW – that did not help disguise the post-baby fat AT ALL).

I have no idea why I have this weird fascination with the cake in this video. I keep picking at it, like I’m excavating for … treasure? Taste? Who knows. Actually, I remember picking through the cake and I think I thought the crusty icing was sort of fun to dig through. I was just as easily amused back then as I am now, it would appear.

And at the very end of the video, I dare to take one more bite. I think I was unwilling to accept the fact that it tasted so nasty the first time, so I was hoping that by taking a second bite, it might taste better.

It didn’t.

The candle in the video is the same candle that we used in our wedding. And yes, we both lit it during the ceremony to signify “unity.” Cheesy, but touching. I hung on to that candle for YEARS before it finally turned yellow and started to smell funny. Actually, we had stored it in a box in our attic and it was starting to melt from all the heat and getting candle wax everywhere.

Not one to be terribly sentimental, I tossed it.

This was taken in our first home, which we rented, which I found because Kevin was working so much in his new career (accounting), that he didn’t have time to look with me. I was shown this house, liked it so much that I called Kevin (from a land line, because we didn’t have cell phones back then *GASP*), and he said, “if you like it, I trust you, get it.” So I got it. We lived in that house for about two years. We moved into the house we own now when Dude was six months old. It was a great first house. VERY drafty, but very comfortable.

Also. I took a lot of video of Kevin’s youngest sister. I had (still do, actually) a girl crush on her and it’s painfully obvious in these old movies. I also noticed that she hardly ever acknowledged me while I was filming her. I bet she thought I was terribly irritating. Now that we’ve known each other for 20 + years, I’ll have to ask her if that annoyed her back then. lol

I love looking back on these old movies. It just brings up all sorts of tender feelings toward Kevin (not that I don’t STILL have tender feelings for him, but you know … did I just put my foot in my mouth?) and makes me thankful that we’ve had such a great life together. I’m truly blessed to have such a great man.

Digitizing Old Movies

June 20, 2011June 20, 2011 Karen

I’ve mentioned that the horrific F5 tornado that ripped through Joplin got me thinking about what I would want to save if I knew something like that was barreling down on us – our family home movies and pictures – and how I really want to focus and get everything stored onto DVD for safe keeping.

I would be physically sick if I ever lost these precious old movies of when the boys were little.

So, that’s what I’m doing, digitizing our old movies, burning them onto DVD’s and will soon store them in our safe deposit box.

(The same with our pictures, too. Which is the next project after I finish this).

So, I hounded Kevin into setting up the old camera at work and I’ve been busy capturing the videos for the past several days.

It’s slow going, but it’s not that bad since I can start the process, set the timer and then come back and check on it. I’ve been capturing the video in chunks because Kevin started to do this a while back and said that it would crash the computer after a time period. So I’m capturing it in chunks to hopefully avoid that snafu.

I just finished capturing the first tape and I will be burning it onto a DVD very soon. I will also be snipping portions of that tape and uploading them to YouTube, so you should see some of those snippets very soon.

Lucky you. 😉

Our first video camera was an anniversary gift to each other for our first anniversary. (I’ll likely post a snippet of when Kevin and I took a bite out of our first tier wedding cake that we saved – with interesting results, I might add). I took hours, and hours, and HOURS, of video of absolutely nothing. Well, not nothing, per se, but rather nothing really interesting happened, and I have to admit, it’s pretty boring, but it’s fun to watch all of the nieces and nephews when they were so YOUNG. (Geez, it doesn’t even seem possible).

I’m really looking forward to getting to the tapes when the boys were babies. I can’t wait to watch those again. It’s been YEARS since I watched them and I’m really looking forward to sharing some of those precious moments with you all.

This is going to be quite a process, I’m afraid. We have 42 tapes to go through.

I really regret not taking more videos over the years. I was so good about doing that in the early years (thank God), but as the kids got older, and well, resistant, (HA!), I just didn’t drag out the camera as much.

Later, we ended up buying a camera that filmed on DVD’s, which I’ll go through and post snippets of when I get to them. That will be a lot easier, obviously.

I’ve already told Kevin and the boys that we’re taking our video camera on vacation with us this year. We’ve talked about taking our video camera with us on vacation every year, and every year, Kevin and I would look at each other, contemplate the hassle of carrying around a video camera and nearly at the same time, wrinkle our noses and say, “Nah. Forget it.” (Just one of the reasons I adore that man – we think so much alike).

But I’m not going to allow him to talk me out of it this go-around. As we did last year, we will take enough cameras for everyone to use (the boys actually took some of the coolest photos), as well as our video camera and we’ll take turns filming each other. It should be interesting what the boys choose to focus on. HA! Kevin bought a whole spindle worth of 30-minute DVD’s for really cheap, so we won’t run out of DVD’s to use any time soon.

Oops. The timer just went off. Time to capture the next installment of our VERY EXCITING LIVES.

Hey. We may not be the most exciting people out there, but I wouldn’t trade our mundane moments for anything in the world.

P.S. – Here is our set up in case you want to do something similar with your old movies:

We’re using the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder. Here is the product description:

With the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder, anyone can transfer video to a DVD using a PC—no experience required. Simply connect a VCR, DVD player, camcorder or other video device to the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder USB hardware. Then use Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder software to create a DVD recording complete with menus and chapter at the click of a button. You can burn your video directly to a DVD without first copying files to the PC hard drive, saving both valuable time and space. The DVD can be played on any home DVD player. DVD burning has never been so easy thanks to the Pinnacle Dazzle DVC 100 DVD Recorder.

And it really is easy. And it saves as a Windows Media File, so there should be very little conversion required.

Though Dazzle probably has software that comes with it, we’re using Windows Movie Magic to actually capture the video. It recognizes the video camera and it’s as simple as clicking “start capturing video.” Once you click on “stop capture”, then it saves to whatever folder you designate. Once it’s on your hard drive (actually, you don’t have to save the video on your hard drive if you don’t want to, but it’s less likely to crash when you burn it on to a DVD later), you can burn it to a DVD. Once on a DVD, then you can edit the video and upload it.

Anyway, that might give you a starting point if you’re interested in digitizing any of your old movies.

P.S.S. – I was not compensated, in any way, for mentioning this product. It’s what we use and we like it because it’s easy and seems to do the job. Remember? I don’t do product reviews. Ever. I should write a disclaimer or something.