As I get more familiar with the digital world, I have discovered that more space is needed.
Actually, my phone was nice enough to tell me that I was at 199.99 percent of my 200 GB capacity and needed to either dump some stuff or add more storage. Lest I run the risk of new items not being saved to the iCloud.
Of course, more storage equals more cost each month but it wasn’t that outrageous a difference in what I pay now as opposed to what the larger storage capacity is. My daughter, however, thought it would be smarter to just go through and dump some of the 8,888 photos and/or 2,914 videos currently on my phone than pay more. Dump stuff (text messages, too, she said) and then I wouldn’t have to pay any additional fees.
In theory, that works, but given the fact that many of those photos and videos are job-related and feature some outstanding football plays, flag football excitement, volleyball victories and more, I would be hard pressed to decide which ones I could dump and not lament missing later.
Not to mention, there are probably at least a couple thousand photos and easily 500 to 600 videos featuring my granddaughter. Putting that into perspective, Lorelei just turned two in mid-January. No way those are getting deleted.
As I explained to my daughter as I ventured into the 2TB (terabyte) storage arena, it’s not like I am going to stop taking pictures and videos of my granddaughter. That terabyte times two is going to keep me in good shape for quite a while.
And yes, my granddaughter is now a full-fledged toddler with the attitude to match. Two years old and she has very definite ideas of how her day should go, even if that’s not what her parents have planned.
It’s a tightrope some days for sure but show me a parent-child relationship that isn’t.
We took a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for her birthday; she loved the penguins and the sea otters the most. Least favorite was definitely the octopus, especially when it stretched out its tentacles and looked like it was reaching for her; she was out of there pretty fast.
The ride there was during what should have been her nap time but, as usual, she decided to defy logic and stay awake the entire way until we were literally 15 miles away from Monterey. She kept up a steady stream of conversation with me the whole way, mostly about the cows we saw on the hills and about the book we were reading in the backseat or if I could find ‘Elmo Abby’ on my phone so she could watch an episode of Sesame Street.
We traveled there one day and had dinner and spent the night at a hotel so the next day we could just get to the Aquarium as soon as it opened and enjoy ourselves without having to drive there first. She was pretty fascinated by many of the exhibits and it was a great way to celebrate her birthday. We even made a stop at a specialty donut shop in Monterey and she got to choose one; it was a Cookie Monster donut with lots of blue frosting and some cookies added in. She chose not to share it with any of us but wasn’t quite able to finish the whole thing by herself, either. At least not in one sitting, since it weighed about five pounds. My daughter, son-in-law and I each had a specialty sweet treat too and of course Lorelei wanted to try each of ours.
The drive home later that day, she was making sure the cows were still on the hills before she actually took a nap, sleeping almost the whole final hour of the drive.
She looked so sweet, I just had to get a few photos and a video or two.
Good thing I have enough storage.
Marg Jackson is editor of The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 209-847-3021.
