P3D Re: Barriers...

[Ronald Beck <ronald-beck@xxxxxx>]

> I will throw this idea out. Could it possible be that in this day and age,
> people have lost the 'do it yourself' attitude? At one time, people were
> more handy around the house, worked on their own cars, pumped their own
> gas, got up off their behind and actually changed the dial on the TV,
> cooked rather than microwaved, went to the bank rather than use automatic
> deposit... you get the idea?
> 
> I really hate to use the word Lazy, but could that be part of it? I would
> guess that if we had this list 20 years ago, we would find that no one on
> it would trust their slides to another person to mount them. Just a
> thought.
> 

At one time, people had more time to work on the house, car, etc... 
Things were much less complicated back "then" than they are today.  When
I was 17, I could remove, rebuild and replace my carburetor without any
problem.  I could also replace the points & condenser and rotor, change
the spark plugs and set the timing, again without any problems.  If
there were starter problems, I could remove and replace the starter.

Today, there isn't enough room to do much of that.  No carburetor to
repair or rebuild, and who can get to the starter these days anyway!

I really believe TIME is the biggest factor.  It just seems that the
world today has much less time to do some of the tasks that can be
done.  For example, it would take me about four hours to perform an oil
change on one of my vehicles.  Why?  First I'd have to drive to my
parent's home to use the car ramps so I could get under the car.  Then,
I'd have to buy the oil and the filter and something to drain the old
oil into.  Next, I'd have to crawl under the car, remove the drain plug
(which ultimately gets oil all over my hands and arms), drain the oil,
get BACK under to replace the plug, add the new oil and finally find a
place to dispose of the old oil.  Meanwhile, my wife has to endure my
parents and my kids get to run around Grandpa and Grandma's house
driving them crazy.

		OR

I can stop at the Jiffy Lube on my way home from work, have them take
care of all the details of an oil change, have my car's chassis lubed,
the car swept out and all other auto fluids topped off.  $25.00 and 20
minutes and I'm on my way home.  I not only bought an oil change, I also
bought an additional 3 1/2 hours of time to play with the kids.

The same occurs with my choice of slide developing and mounting.  I can
take my roll of film and have the one-hour lab process it "unmounted &
uncut" at a price of $8.00.  Then I can purchase all the slide mounts
for those slides, find a "quiet area" in the house (right... two boys, 5
& 2 and a new baby girl) and spend 1/2 an hour or more mounting.

		OR

I can purchase Kodak slide mailers, add an additional $4.20, and mail
them off.  The slides are then returned processed and mounted in realist
format mounts ready to sit down and view.  For my approx $8.00 I've
bought back the time that would have been spent mounting the slides and
use that time to sit with the viewer and my two boys who love to look at
slides with daddy.

Now, one day I'm sure I'll give mounting my own slides a try.  I even
have the first roll of realist slides I ever shot waiting for me to get
mounts (yet another problem for me RE: mounting).  And, I'd love to give
competitions a try at some point to.  But, for now, I prefer to have
Kodak do my mounting.  I've had very good results so far and am quite
satisfied to continue.  It's just another way I remove MY barriers to
stereo photography.

Regards,
Ron

P.S. Gas pumping, until recently, was not self-serve.  You HAD to let an
attendant pump your gas for you.  Banks, until recently, kept "Bankers
Hours" (9:00 - 3:00) making it nearly impossible to do any banking
functions unless you left work.  There used to be only three or four TV
stations available so scanning the other networks for another program
wasn't as time consuming as scanning through 70 some odd stations on
both the cable "A" side or "B" side.  And, I still cook!  On the stove!


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