What do you own that, in your mind, cannot be replaced? For the sake of discussion, let's assume that all living things are safely accounted for.
I'll start: For me it would be my acoustic guitar. It is a 1976 Gibson J50. It's not the prettiest looking or sounding guitar but it has sentimental value. It's the guitar that my father in law gave me after marrying his daughter. He and his wife used to play it for my wife when she was a girl. Unfortunately, my wife's mother died when she was young. I never had the chance to meet her but playing this guitar makes me feel a bond to her.
I've recorded two (soon to be 3) albums with it and played countless shows with it. It's been dropped on stage, left behind at the venue etc but it always finds its way safely home.
That's what I'd grab. How about you?
Baby's kind of a given.
Which reminded me that I also need to grab a binder of his letters to my mom while he was in Vietnam. I also have a CD of him, which was copied from tapes that he sent to my mom while he was there. It's weird to listen to your dad when he was at war, much younger than you.
It's just a thing, though. When I moved my wife down to California I had to relocate the studio, too, which meant the ridonkulous Kurzweil needed a case (it weighs 80 lbs). That case is now under the bed. And in that case are every negative taken by my parents, ever, including (hopefully) some my dad took in Thule, Greenland when he was doing his co-op. What's left of my grandparents' albums are in there, too, picked clean by my opportunistic and rapacious aunt. One of these days I'll run it all through the film scanner, hopefully while you can still talk to SCSI II via Firewire. Somehow I'm not optimistic that SCSI II - Firewire - Thunderbolt is going to work and the slide scanner I have can't be beaten for less than $8k.
Sounds pretty damn good. You're right to leave it though and grab the negatives. I asked my wife what she'd grab and she knew immediately. Photo's of her mother.
Dude, I forgot that you play the guitar. Between you, me, b_b and mk, we've got the makings of a band. Though b_b and mk both play bass and you really only need one bass player. -We'll make them arm-wrestle for it. Loser gets the tambourine.
As for the friends thing, it's a tough one. I am fortunate to have kept in touch with many old friends but time and distance tend to take their toll. What is nice is that we can get together and pick up where we left off. I do think that part of getting older is having a smaller circle of really intimate friends but a larger circle of acquaintances and people you are friendly with. I'm glad you're on Hubski though, stick around and congrats on the engagement. You're only engaged once (if you're lucky), so enjoy it! You'll be able to call her your wife the rest of your life but only fiancée for a short time.