Ready for Winter's End

This winter, so far, has been quite cold and snowy. This is to be expected where I live. However, I'm quite ready for winter to near it's end and for the green warmth of spring and winter's end to be upon us.

Last fall, it seems my family and I could hardly contain our excitement for the first snow of the winter. It was a sign that Christmas was near and all the traditions of the season were soon to be enjoyed. I haven't looked up the data, but, if my memory has not entirely left me, I believe this to be the greatest amount of snowfall we have received in a number of years.

Every time I get my driveway cleared of the white stuff, it starts dumping on us again. The act of clearing the driveway has become somewhat of a futile effort. I suppose there's something to be said for having less snow to drive through. Even with all wheel drive, I had some difficulty getting out of my driveway yesterday.

Perhaps I will go and do some more snow removal this evening. Occasionally, I enjoy the act of snow removal. I sometimes enjoy being outside, battling the storm, coming in covered in snow. However, I think I've just about had enough of all this. I should probably go and clear my driveway again as I need to make a short trip to the store later. I should do many things outside right now. Instead I'm sitting inside, backing up DVDs to my media server. Perhaps I'll write an article on that process later. It's much easier than it used to be.

I'm beginning to ramble a bit now, but back in "the old days," about ten to fifteen years ago, the process involved multiple command line utilities. One would first have to copy the entire VOB file from the disc to the hard drive. Step 2 was to decrypt the DVD using one command line utility. The final step was then convert it to a more compressed and usable format like DivX or MP4.

Nowadays, one can simply use a nice graphical utility like MakeMKV or similar.

Perhaps I will write an article on that process very soon. Lately I've almost entirely resigned to simply sitting in my house and waiting for winter's end.